Culture Over Coffee
Culture Over Coffee
Why Are So Many Managers Lacking Follow-Through? With Matt Sunshine
In this episode, we’re consulting ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report once again as we ponder the question: “Why are so many managers lacking follow-through?”
It’s here that we’ll cover how managers and company leaders can do a better job, every day, of living up to their word.
And joining Beth to provide some great thoughts on this issue is Matt Sunshine, CEO at The Center for Sales Strategy.
Matt provides some truly great points to consider, like:
- How it’s only a matter of time before people consider opportunities elsewhere if they can’t truly count on their leaders
- Why increased transparency with your employees only deepens trust (Hint, hint: employees almost always want to hear the bad news first)
- And, finally, how holding regular townhall meetings can be one of the most powerful ways to ensure that your employees feel valued and included in the future success of your company.
LINKS:
ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report
Matt Sunshine
The Center for Sales Strategy
Beth Sunshine
Up Your Culture
Hello and welcome to Culture Over Coffee, a podcast focused on improving company culture and fostering employee engagement. Every week, we chat with experts and thought leaders about the latest information and proven practices you can use to reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity on your team and retain key customers. So pour a cup of your favorite brew and join us. I'm your host, beth Sunshine, svp at Up your Culture and the Center for Sales Strategy. In this episode, we're consulting ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report, once again as we ponder the question why are so many managers lacking follow-through?
Beth Sunshine:Today, we'll cover how managers and company leaders can do a better job every day of living up to their word, and joining me to provide some strong thinking on this issue is Matt Sunshine, CEO at the Center for Sales Strategy. Matt gives us a lot to think about, like how people who can't truly count on their leaders eventually consider opportunities elsewhere. Why increased transparency with your employees only deepens trust. And, as an interesting tidbit, he shares how employees almost always want to hear the bad news first. And finally, how holding regular town hall meetings can be one of the most powerful ways to ensure that your employees feel valued and included in the future success of your company. Hey, matt, thank you for joining me today for Culture Over Coffee, for you and me. I'm excited to be here, me too.
Matt Sunshine:These are our kitchen table topics for us, we.
Beth Sunshine:I'm excited to be here Me too. These are our kitchen table topics. For us, we talk about these things all the time, literally, literally.
Beth Sunshine:So I'm excited for our listeners to get to hear your take on them. I think that's going to be really cool. This season we are digging into the Engage 2024 Culture Report. I know you spent some time with that. Lots of good stuff in there. We're breaking down all season this digging into the Engage 2024 Culture Report. I know you spent some time with that. Lots of good stuff in there. We're breaking down all season, all season, the stories that we learned from that report, and today we're gonna talk about company leaders and managers and how they earn trust or even lose trust with their employees and, of course, how that impacts engagement.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, absolutely Excited to hear. Thank you.
Beth Sunshine:Kirk, yeah, me too. All right, so we'll jump right in. I know you well enough to know that integrity is a core value of yours not just of our companies, but truly of yours. So I'm interested in your take on this. Specifically, engage 2024 revealed that only half of respondents said that they could always count on their manager to do what they said they would do, and that's a low number, and it's dropped eight points from last year. So I want to zero in on it a little bit with you and ask you you know, over time, what impact do you think that has on team morale or on organizational culture in the long haul?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, I think it has a tremendous impact. I mean any time, any relationship that you have and work is a significant relationship. You spend half your life or, you know, 10 hours a day. I know many, many, many listening will say they spend way more than 10 hours a day. So you spend half of your time at work. You spend half of your time with the leadership or working for the leadership, and if you can't count on them to do what they say they're going to do, how disappointing is that?
Matt Sunshine:I think that if you're in a situation where you don't count on, where you don't feel as though you can count on the person to do what they say they're going to do, well, then you probably feel like you have a job versus doing what you're meant to do. Right, you probably feel like you are. You're just working just so that you can live your life, versus this is what I do and I'm so proud of it. You miss out on that amazing opportunity. So I think over time it's frustrating. You're probably more likely to look for another job or be open to another job that comes along. I think it's pretty terrible if you can't trust the people that you work with to do what they say they're going to do. Yeah, yeah, I agree, and I think you's pretty terrible if you can't trust the people that you work with to do what they say they're going to do.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, yeah, I agree and I think you're exactly right. It hurts the person themselves and it hurts the organization. So why is this happening? Why do you think that follow through is such an issue with managers right now? Are there maybe common hurdles that are getting in the way?
Matt Sunshine:I think there are. So I am a naturally, as you know, positive person, sometimes annoyingly so. So I believe that leadership has good intentions. I believe that if they did not have good intentions, they will be weeded out of the system and they will not be there. So I believe that they have good intentions and so, with that belief, I do not believe that they are intentionally not following through on what they said.
Matt Sunshine:I think that the rate of change I think there's a few things. One would be the rate of change that things happen, certain things become out of control, so on. Today the leader says, hey, this is what we're going to do, yes, we can do this, yes, we can do that. Direction is forward. Go that tomorrow afternoon that same leader might be called into a meeting where they learn that everything that they knew to be true is no longer true. And before there's even a communication strategy out to everybody on the new way we're doing it, people are feeling as though they're being let down by leadership because they're not doing what they originally said that they were going to do. So I think that's one.
Matt Sunshine:I think the second thing is that in talent focus management at CSS, we have a section of that workshop where we ring a lot of bells, right, and we make the point of when too many bells are ringing. It's frustrating. You don't feel like you're being heard, you don't know what to do. You feel all of those feels. I think leadership has that going on right now. There's a lot of bells, especially middle management, which is where I think leadership has that going on right now. There's a lot of bell, especially middle management, which is where I think is maybe the toughest job in any B2B operation. You have so many bells ringing above you and bells ringing below you that it is very difficult to sometimes it's not acceptable, but it is difficult to remember all the things that you said you were going to do. You just have a lot of things pulling on you.
Beth Sunshine:So a lot of distractions, not a ton of time. Things changing rapidly and those are real obstacles. How can managers improve this? Do you have advice that you give to managers you work with so they do get better at doing what they say they will do?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah. So for me it's about having things that are core to what you believe in, right, and so if one of the things that is core to what you believe in is I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do, it's going to become your number one priority. And if that's your number one priority, it's your number one priority, right? The main thing is always the main thing, and so if your priority is, if your priorities are different, if your priorities are not about always doing what you say you're going to do, then you're going to drift and do those things.
Matt Sunshine:So one is I would do that. The second is I would be more transparent, I would be more open and honest and share what's going on. I mean, you know me better than anyone and I'm as transparent as it gets intentionally. I enjoy being transparent. I think that you should surround yourself with people that you really really trust and that you like and you enjoy working with. And if you trust and enjoy working with people, then why wouldn't you share what's going on and be really transparent with them? And when you are, then all these other things kind of just line up nicely.
Beth Sunshine:That makes sense. Okay, so we've been talking a bit about managers and managers not coming through for their people and people losing trust in their managers. But if we were to look through a broader lens, the survey showed that 57% of the people who responded currently trust their company and its leaders. So only 57%, and that's down, by the way, significantly. It was 70% last year. So something is happening where organizations at the highest level are losing the trust of their people. I find that fascinating and I'm curious. I know you haven't had a ton of time to really dwell on this, but why do you think we're seeing this trust factor trend downward like that?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, for the first time in a long time I've started to notice that managers don't always agree with what the leadership of a company is doing and for the first time in a long time that's not new. Managers not agreeing with leadership is not new. But for the first time in a long time I'm noticing managers say out loud to the people that report to them. It's not me, it's the company that's making us do this.
Matt Sunshine:It's not my decision it's their decision and that's causing a chasm. Right, that divide that starts off with something innocent, which maybe is actually even true, right, maybe manager doesn't agree necessarily with, but that lack of unity, that lack of we're all on the same page, we're all going in the same direction, is causing a gap to occur and all of a sudden, people start feeling as though, yeah, I trust my manager, I like my manager, but I don't trust the leadership of this company any longer. I don't think the leaders know what they're doing. I don't think the company any longer. I don't think the leaders know what they're doing. I don't think the company necessarily knows what they're doing.
Matt Sunshine:Although I, like my manager I think she's got my back I don't believe that the leadership does and the direction a company is going, that they should walk into their, their boss's office, their leadership's office, shut the door and say can we have a behind closed doors conversation about the direction that we're going and have at it? But when that door opens up, we're on the same page and I think that's what's driving this. I think that is the root cause, or one of the root causes, of this.
Beth Sunshine:I find that fascinating. I'm actually seeing some of that myself. So when that happens in an organization, over time you have a series of managers pointing to corporate and saying you know, it's not me, it's them earning their favor, passing the blame. What kind of fallout can happen across that group, that organization?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah. So, one by one, people start losing confidence of where they're working right. If my direct manager is not in alignment with the company's vision, goals, direction, routines, habits, whatever the word is, then I don't know where I live All of a sudden. I don't know. And how awkward is it. If you're a manager and you're with some of your colleagues, other managers and three or four let's say a group of four people, and three of them are going, can you believe the direction that this company is going? And you're one, and you're like I do believe the direction the company is going. I like the direction that this company is going. Right, and you're one, you're like, I do believe the direction the company is going. I like the direction that the company.
Matt Sunshine:I just think there needs to be true leadership to step up and true leadership to say hey, around here we invite lots of different voices to have an opinion and help us with the direction of the company, but once a decision is made, we're all in line. Once that decision is made, we're all in line. Everyone has a voice. Not everyone gets a vote, but everyone has a voice. Someone has to make the decision the CEO or the head of the division, or the regional or whatever. In your organization, whatever that means, there is someone that has to eventually say this is the direction that we're going and this is why. But they have to do it right, they have to call it. I think a big mistake that gets made is leaders try to be. They try to be vague because they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or they don't want to upset anybody, and so by being vague they actually upset everybody.
Matt Sunshine:right Versus just saying this is how we're going, and so I think a little bit of this is about. I think a little bit of this is caused by the lack of clear direction from leadership.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, I agree.
Matt Sunshine:Not tolerating managers that are intentionally or unintentionally probably more unintentionally sabotaging the work being done.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense and it's interesting to look at it from everyone's perspective, which you just kind of took us through. You know, at the highest level, the CEO or the regional or whoever it is, you've got them trying to steer the ship, captain the ship, and then you've got that next layer of managers who may not agree but if they don't follow suit, if the captain's vision doesn't become their vision?
Beth Sunshine:I don't remember what word you use, but the people beneath them feel lost and I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say it just that way. But you wonder, who do you work for? And I think, that's how you said it.
Matt Sunshine:And I don't think, I don't think that any. Again, it's my positivity showing. I don't think anyone is intentionally intentionally trying to make people not trust the organization. I think everyone has the best intentions actually.
Beth Sunshine:I agree. I think in some cases that leader just truly disagrees and is having a hard time going along with something they don't agree. Sometimes I think it's cowardice. It's very hard to tell people what they don't want to hear, easier to pass the buck.
Matt Sunshine:For all of those reasons, though, it's really tough on whoever is captaining the ship. I read an article. I'll say this. I read an article. It was in McKinsey, I think, a couple of weeks ago. I might have shared it with you where they were talking about when you had good news and bad news to share.
Beth Sunshine:You did.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, okay, yeah. So you have good news and bad news to share. The people receiving the information always want to hear the bad news first. Give me the bad news first. Get out of the way. Just give me the bad news and then give me the good news. The people giving the information want to give the good news first and push the bad news off as long as they possibly can and then just shove the bad news in at the very end because they don't want to have to deal with it.
Matt Sunshine:I think that's right. That's. That's a, that is a gap, that's a natural gap, yeah.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, yeah, which goes to why you're saying it's probably unintentional, but what can be done about it? What can company leaders at the very highest levels do to earn that trust back? They have employees across their organization who may now not trust the company. What do you do?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah. So again to me, you have to be transparent. You have to be transparent. You have to over communicate. You have to find time to spend time with people, find time to communicate with people, find time to get to know your people. Right, you know, great people produce great results. So you want great people, and great people need to need to know that you not only care about their production, their productivity, but you care about them. And one way to show people you care about them is to trust them. And one way to show that you trust them is to be transparent with them. And if that's not natural for you, then schedule time to do it, make it a to-do item, put it on your calendar. But showing your people that they're important to you and having them become part of the way you operate, making them realize how important they are, that's probably the best thing they could do.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, I agree, and time is also the enemy. Anytime you're coaching anybody to improve, in any area, time is the enemy. So I like the way you made it that simple. You have to make time. It has to be a priority.
Matt Sunshine:I posted about this on LinkedIn the other day and it resonated with a lot of people. A lot of people responded to it. But this whole concept of making micro improvements micro improvements that make a major impact and I think sometimes we can make things bigger than they need to be right and sometimes we need to just step back and go. You know what there has to be part of what we're doing right. So you can be listening to this podcast and you could be thinking, oh, I know I need to be more transparent and I know it, but I don't have the time to do any of that.
Matt Sunshine:Well, what's something that you can do?
Matt Sunshine:What is a small micro improvement that you can do that would show your people that you really care about them? Or show your people, show this person, make it even show this person that I care about them. What is a way that I could be a little more transparent with this team of four people that I work with on a regular basis? How could I show what is one thing that I could do, one thing a week that I could do to show this group of four people that I work with that I value them, that I care about what they have to say, that I want their input, or I at least want to inform them on something. What is one thing I can do to open up that transparency, to kind of bring them in? I think if you make it a micro moment, it becomes a lot easier to do than. Oh, I need to make sure I'm being more transparent, because then also you're building out a big strategic plan and you're going to spend 90 days working on building the plan and maybe never implement anything.
Matt Sunshine:Just implement something today.
Beth Sunshine:I love the concept of micro-improvements. There is something that we can all do right now. Even with that, all the hurdles, that's a good tip. Thank you for sharing that. All right, so almost two-thirds of those surveyed report that their companies hold a regular town hall style meeting, which I thought was more than expected. That's something that you've always done as a CEO. I know it's something that you put a lot of thought in time in planning. We often call it an ask me anything meeting, because you literally open it up for people to ask you anything. So I want to ask a little bit about your thinking behind these. What do you say is the difference between a traditional all-hands meeting and a town hall meeting, because I'm not sure that we're all talking about the same thing.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, so to me an all-hands meeting. By the way, I see value in both of them.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, hands meet.
Matt Sunshine:By the way, I see value in both of them. Yeah, I think they're both great, um, and I can't believe that. Only two-thirds uh, what are the other? What the other one-third do? They don't ever anybody. It's just like you work here and you don't need to know anything else. Just come in, do your job and go home keep your head down, don't's ridiculous.
Matt Sunshine:Okay, all hands meeting to me is a broadcast, it is to me. I get this picture. I'm not going to name the company, but I know a company that had like three floors of an office building and in the office building, in their three floors, the center was cut out and there was a stairwell that went up those three floors and the CEO would come to the top of the three floors and everyone would gather around on the stairwell and kind of look up to the Oracle and he would, he, would, he. It was their all hands meeting and he called it their all hands meeting and he basically broadcast their all-hands meeting and he basically broadcast to everybody what's going on in the company. Very valuable.
Matt Sunshine:I actually happened to be in there one day when they did their all-hands meeting and they invited me to stay and I thought that was pretty cool. There was no Q&A, there was no deep sharing of anything, it was more of just a broadcast of information that he thought I'm going to catch everyone up to speed. I would venture to say that everything that he said, 30% of the room already knew. There was nothing that he said that nobody knew, but there's lots of things he said that half the room didn't know. Half the room did know, right.
Beth Sunshine:Okay.
Matt Sunshine:Went very well. People really liked the all hands meeting. That is not a town hall meeting. A town hall meeting is more of a dialogue and a town hall meeting is where you're sharing things. Oh, and in the all hands meeting you're probably, you probably are sharing things that you don't care if it gets out.
Beth Sunshine:Okay.
Matt Sunshine:Right, you're fine if it you might. You might have one piece of it that you say is a little confidential, but for the most part, you're just broadcasting information. A town hall meeting is is we're bringing everyone together. We're going to share what's going on inside the company. We're going to share with you some of the direction that we're taking. We're going to share with you perhaps how, the performance, how we're doing based on the, the objectives that you know that we have, and we're going to open it up to Q&A and we're going to say, hey, everything's on the table, Ask whatever you want, and we're going to answer as transparently as we possibly can.
Beth Sunshine:That was a nice distinction between the two, both valuable, very different. So, focusing on the town hall hall meeting the one that you're opening it up to questions more of a discussion. Um, what are the benefits of having something like that scheduled regularly? Should it be like we have a big change coming, let's have a town hall meeting, or should it be something that is quarterly or annual, or something that is more regular than that?
Matt Sunshine:Great question. The answer is yes, all of it. You should have it scheduled. So if you don't have them scheduled, then the message that you're sending is I'm only gathering people together when I'm really proud of something that we just did and I just want to brag, and so we're going to pull everyone together or something really bad's happening and I need to tell everyone. And so, instantly, the moment that calendar invite comes out, people are like why are we having a town hall meeting? What is happening here? No one likes change, and right, I mean, that's not new. When did the book who Moved my Cheese?
Beth Sunshine:when did that come out A million years ago, a long time ago.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, I mean, it's always been a thing. So we don't normally have these meetings and now all of a sudden they're calling a town hall meeting. Something must have happened. Oh no, If they're regularly scheduled, it's like oh good, town hall meeting is on the calendar. Forgot it was this Friday. I'm glad it's this Friday. I love those meetings. I get to ask a question, hear what's going on. It's the way we do business.
Beth Sunshine:I like that Part of part of your regular routine. So you used Friday just as an example. But our meeting for our company actually is tomorrow, which as we're recording, it is tomorrow. It is tomorrow and it is Friday, and so I know you've been thinking about it, preparing for it. So what best practices can you share with leaders who are listening, who may want to implement a successful town hall meeting themselves, something that helps them foster open dialogue, something that helps them provide the transparency you were advising earlier?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, follow a consistent routine. Okay, right. So however you do your town hall meeting, do them the same way every single time. I will tell you as the person who is in charge of leading a town hall meeting or authoring the town hall meeting it's a lot easier to do when you're following a consistent pattern. I'll also tell you as someone that used to be on the receiving end of town hall meetings it's kind of nice when it's consistent and you know what it's a routine. You know they're going to start off with this, then they're going to go to this, and then they're going to have this and it's going to finish with this. It's kind of nice to have that routine.
Matt Sunshine:The second thing is to remember that it does not and should not be the CEO show. There is no reason that anyone wants to just go on and on listening to the CEO talk. I know that some CEOs are very charismatic. They're very personable, they're charming and they are awesome. In this environment, the CEO should definitely be a part, but let some other people share the spotlight, let some other people lead and run. Every great leader knows that the secret to success is making sure that you have people that are better than you that can replace, do your job better. This is a great way to get those people uh, to prepare those people for those opportunities. Get them involved. So my, uh, my advice would be to schedule a routine, uh, a format to use every single time to doesn't have to be the ceo show. Let other people shine. And lastly and I've said it now, I think probably a dozen times during this podcast is be transparent and be open to questions.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, no, related to questions. Just as a nice addition, you might add you do something with questions for our town hall. You might share that tip too. I bet people could try that.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, ask in advance. Um, I always send out the the Monday before the Friday. Um, well, as you know, every Monday I send out a video to our entire team. Uh, my Monday morning video usually anywhere from two minutes, two to four minutes.
Beth Sunshine:Like a mini, all hands meeting really.
Matt Sunshine:It is an. It is a mini all hand because it is a broadcast. That's exactly right. But I always ask for questions, usually on the Monday before the Friday town hall. What questions do you have?
Matt Sunshine:And I do that for a couple of reasons. Number one is some people do not feel comfortable asking questions in front of a group, and so they might be holding back when really their question is really important. So this gives them a way to do it in privacy and secrecy. Second thing is it's impossible. Some questions are impossible to answer on the spot. Some you wouldn't be giving a quality answer. You might need to pull some data or research something before you can really answer, and so I like to be given a little heads up for me and my leadership team to go OK, that's a really good question. This is going to be the answer.
Matt Sunshine:The third thing is some things can't be answered in a town hall meeting, and that's the truth. Some questions are more private, they're one-on-one, and it gives me the opportunity to reach out to that person one-on-one and say you know what? This really isn't a good town hall question, but it's a really important question to you and I want to make sure that you get an answer that you're comfortable with. So let's you and I talk about it. So those are some of the reasons. That's one of the tactics that we use and the reason behind the tactic.
Beth Sunshine:Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I've always thought it was really helpful. You still open up the floor to questions during the town hall meeting, but having those in advance is good food for thought and you accomplish a lot with it. I want to thank you for sharing your insight with us today. You've shared so much great information, as I knew you would. Lots of good ideas.
Beth Sunshine:I'm sure our listeners will probably want to connect with you. We'll drop your LinkedIn information in the show notes and, for those listening, if you're not connected with them already, matt really does post frequently and he posts good stuff. He's a good connection to have, so you probably will want to connect. I'm also going to add a link to the Engage 2024 report, the company culture report, so you can check out all the details. Dive into that data yourself. So, as we wrap up, matt, I want to thank you and for those listening, thank you. Remember, a strong company culture really begins with you. Thanks everyone. Thanks so much for spending time with us on Culture Over Coffee. If you've enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe and join us for every episode. For more helpful information on the topics of company culture and employee engagement, visit us at upyourculturecom.
