Welcome to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources
podcast. I'm Tracy Chernhoff, and I've
spent my entire professional career in HR.
Each week, we'll explore the delicate balance between people
and business with the aim to reconnect the two and create
meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human. Resources Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Bringing the Human back to Human Resources,
the podcast where hopefully you're getting a ton of useful
information, maybe sharing in a few laughs or I don't know, just
relating to whatever it is that we're talking about every week.
This week I have Stephen Flanagan on with me and he has
spent the last decade in learning and development.
Though his first leadership training training was not in a
boardroom. At 22 while running a $5,000,000
restaurant in downtown Toronto on a lean budget, which I think
we can all probably relate to, he built his first supervisor
program on the fly with his crew of servers.
Late nights coffee and Donuts became the classroom and real
time practice on the floor became the method.
That's where he discovered the real magic of leadership
development, which is simple habits built and reinforced in
action. He went on to hold corporate HR
rules and high growth mid sized organizations where he saw first
hand how strategy often stalls at the mid layer.
Today he leads Sikhs Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping lean
fast growing companies scale leadership by turning mid level
managers into execution ready leaders who coach, deliver and
move strategy. Forward.
Stevens approach is simple and sustainable.
Build habits tied directly to company goals so learning sticks
and strategy doesn't stall. Through his flagship program,
The Performance Booster, he has helped hundreds of leaders
across industries Dr. Measurable business impact, uncover new
revenue and accelerate both personal and professional
growth. Steven, thank you for being
here. I'm so excited.
I'm so glad to be here. And Tracy, you absolutely nailed
that intro. It's like, I don't even, we
don't even need to record. Thank you for that.
That's it. Thank you everybody.
Have a great week. Bye.
That's the podcast. See you later, Reach out to
Steven. LinkedIn isn't.
Isn't the. Show notes.
I love that. Fastest podcast ever.
It was 2 minutes. I like it.
You know what? The listeners would probably
appreciate it too because they're like Tracy Babbles.
Hopefully they don't feel that way, but you know, maybe maybe
if you do see, I'm sure I'll get a couple comments like, yeah,
you do Babble or no, you don't keep talking, which would be,
you know, great Pat on the back for me.
No, but Steven, thank you so much for being here.
And I know, you know, just in reading your bio and kind of
reflecting on this, your experience, obviously having
been an HR leader in, in organizations before and now
having your own consulting firm. You know, I'm, I'm curious like
how you ultimately make made that transition where you saw
that there was this gap or, or when it kind of dawned on you
that there was this gap. Such a good question and I think
this is a really great place to start.
So you mentioned in the intro that I started in hospitality
and like running this beast, this like 5-6 million dollar
restaurant right out of university taught me a lot.
It was the best thing for my career and also maybe the worst
thing for my career cuz it was hard on my like anxiety and
stuff like that. But anyway, it all started,
Tracy, when I was asked to beat my revenue targets every day at
this restaurant and we were right across the street from
where the Blue Jays play. And I know the Blue Jays just
had a hard loss. They played an amazing series.
Though only it was an amazing series.
To watch, I've got to say just a moment to, you know, like Game 7
was like one of the best games of baseball I have watched in a
long time. So not to interrupt you, but I
think they should be very proud of themselves, you know, for
playing quite, quite a number of games against the Dodgers in the
way that they did. No, absolutely.
Yeah. I, I watched the final game,
game seven with a bunch of my friends and we said the same
thing. It was, it was super impressive.
But anyway, so, so of course my heart belongs to Toronto.
I love the Jays, etcetera. And that's where I really
started my career, working across the street right there.
And we were serving, you know, our average guest check what we
would charge per plate was around 20 bucks and we would be
cranking out around 2829 K and revenue a day.
So lots of people high turn around at 100 staff.
And when I was asked like we need to increase our revenue
targets, you need to beat your sales.
I was like, well, how? Like I don't even know where to
start, right? And what I found to be most
effective was training the girls at the door, training the host
at the door. Every time you see the table
when you're walking by another table, clear plate.
Simple behavior change that over time compounded and brought us
in more revenue. Same thing with the servers.
When you are passing the bar, instead of walking by the
service station, stop and grab a beer.
Same concept again. It cleared the service station.
We got more beers out, more people were served, the tables
move faster. And it's this really simple
thing that always stuck with me because as I was moved into more
corporate roles and did learning and development programs and was
working with executives on navigating COVID and company
strategy and all that stuff. I noticed that small
distillation to say, here's what we want.
And if you can't see me on the screen, I'm making a big funnel,
right? And, and here's what we need is
really this little, little exit point that it got lost in
translation. So I decided to really learn and
understand habits. I, I have a really fantastic
coach named Chris Taylor who's taught me a lot about habits as
well. And when I started using habits
in my leadership programs, everything changed.
Everything changed. And it was about two years ago
where I was able to hear participants say after four
days, I freed up enough capacity to uncover A6 figure net new
revenue opportunity because I practiced effective delegation
that we learned in the classroom.
And I did it incrementally. And I did it simply, you know,
it was in 30 days. Steven, I'm showing up to this
conversation completely differently because my stress
levels are so much better because over the last 30 days
when I sat down at my desk instead of turning on my
monitor, I made a list and I checked that list off and I got
more control in my day. And it's again going back to
this idea of companies want work life balance, companies want
well-being, companies want growth, but the people don't
know how to deliver it. And I feel like that's a big gap
where we as HR or executive teams best intentions and and
myself included in this best intentions distillation needs a
little bit of work. Right, right.
This is really compelling because one of the things that I
was thinking about as you were sharing your story was kind of
my coming into HR, which I started in store and retail.
So similar to you, like on the ground, right, quote UN quote on
the ground in these like massive, massive industries
where like it's all about the consumer and it's all about
their experience. And how do you just continue to
like elevate the expectation and the revenue?
Retail and hospitality have that definitely in common and the
competition is fierce. And so I was thinking about my
own experience going from, you know, like in store to, to
incorporate, so to speak, HR, corporate HR.
And that there, there is so much more control in some ways that
you have when you are like on the ground in store, in, in
restaurant and you have like, in some ways, not an easier time,
like setting that expectation and following up on it.
But it, you can feel it, you can like apply it, you can see it,
you can see it through. And then when you move to
corporate HR and for you and L&D and then for me and you know,
like business partnering, it's so much harder in some ways to
get that message across because you're not on the floor with
those people. You're, you have to like rely on
the relationships that you've established with people who
could be thousands of miles away from you.
Also depending on the organization you work for.
And it, it just puts so much more emphasis on to your point,
habits and how we like help people to understand that their
behaviors are actually what Dr. outcomes and it's not the other
way around. It's not like, oh, well,
customers aren't coming in. And so This is why our sales are
down. No, well, why aren't customers
coming in? Do they know your are your store
hours correct on Google? Like that is like such a small
thing, right? Like just like anything like
does it say you're temporarily closed still because of COVID?
Like that would be bad. That would that's probably bad
for business. I've seen that.
I've seen that recently. Right.
Me too. That's what made me think about
it. I'm like, you're open, Google
says you're closed. Like you're you're going to
default, my friend. Like what?
But yeah, no, I I think that all of this kind of makes a lot of
sense. And and then when we think, when
we remove ourselves, many of us are probably in, you know, more
corporate environments or working for small to mid size,
maybe even large sized organizations.
How do we get our message across?
How do we build on those habits? So in what you do and even with
the work that you, you know, highlighted from your coach or
maybe even others, you know, where does someone start in
identifying like the habits that they should have or the habits
that they need their teams to have?
Yeah. To to drive better outcomes.
Such a great question. So I'll start here.
I didn't know the answer to that, Tracy, until about, I want
to say 6 to 8 months ago when I started serving people on
LinkedIn and I said a new strategic goal is issued for
next year. Will a mid level leader have
more trouble communicating what it means to their team or
delivering on it themselves, A or B?
And it was this really interesting thing because I
wanted to understand from the people who are enabling
perspective, right? Like where they saw the gap
because I work with the HR leaders on the front line often
in my training sessions. And I'll get to that in a
second, But HR leaders shared that it was much harder.
I think it was like over 50% of the poll came back where it's
like this idea of translating what a goal means to their team
is the hardest thing. And delivery comes later.
When you ask the managers in the room, they're always going to
say delivery is harder because they're on the front lines and
they feel, they feel the squeeze and, and rightfully so, right.
And what I realized, Tracy, is it's actually this thing called
the execution gap strategy to results is cyclical.
It's not one or the other. It's not just one thing, it's
all the things. And if we can't communicate
correctly, that means we can't translate.
If the executives can't communicate the goal directly,
that that means that the managers can't translate it.
If the managers can't translate it, it means their teams can't
deliver on it. If their teams can't deliver on
it, that means HR has performance problems.
And if HR has performance problems, that means there's
going to be a nutrition issue. And if there's a nutrition
issue, that comes back to our mission vision values.
And then that's not right, right?
So it's, it's, it's a wheel, it's a thing.
So after I surveyed and taking my own kind of instincts and
understanding of what leaders struggle with on the ground,
I've realized this thing called the execution gap, which is
again, the gap between strategy that we set in the boardroom and
what happens on the floor to get us there comes down to three
things. Translation, which is how do I
take the goal and make it an everyday thing?
Communication, how do I get everyone on the same page for
what that goal is? And adoption, how do I actually
get the stuff done and adopt the behaviors needed to make the
organization successful against what they expect?
So to answer your question, it's usually one of those three, if
not all of them that leaders struggle with.
And again, it's not their fault. To your point, these are high
growth changing companies, often small to medium size.
That's where I play, that's where I work, where the ball's
changing. People who are promoted into
these mid level leader roles are often doing the job that they
had because they haven't filled it, they haven't hired it yet or
they're still training. Plus they're needing to manage
up to understand what's expected now.
And often times, you know, God bless the executives.
You know, I myself run a small organization, still figuring it
out as we go, right. And again, that's not anyone's
fault, but that's a reality. So it can be a very tricky
thing. And you know, I, I also
understand from, you know, McKinsey reported, I think in
the last time they, the last stat I've seen was like June 20,
2530 percent of strategy fails to translate into results.
And Gartner reported more recently that it was around 40%.
I run a monthly workshop with HR leaders to talk about the
execution gap and they're saying it's more like 60%.
Wow. Of strategic goals don't
translate into results, and there was another observation
that 90 to 100% don't translate to the expected results.
Wow, those are big numbers. Well, do you disagree?
No, I don't actually. I don't.
I think that I think like 20 is or 3040% is like, yeah, like
yeah, maybe you're getting there, but I think 60% is more
accurate. And that 90 to 100%, I see that
with with, I could see that happening with more goals than
not because of the expected outcome.
Like maybe you get close to the outcome, but you don't get to
the expected outcome. But that's 60% of like, no,
we're like just completely missing the mark.
I totally, totally see that. Yeah.
And, and, and I think there's a big opportunity to to shift that
again with this idea of habits and just to creating the clarity
around what's needed. And again, when we're in the
boardroom and we're talking about where do we want to go in
the next three to five years and what does that mean for right
now or for the quarter? Expand sales by 2X in Q4 within
the Midwest region feels time bound, feels specific enough,
but people are often where the fuck do I start with that?
Is it booking a sales call? Is it prospecting?
Is it follow-ups? Is it messaging right.
And then that's the rub. So right, again, we think that
that goal is specific and rolling that out in a town hall
and getting everyone fired up about it is awesome.
But people are still like kind of grasping at straws to
understand. So if we were to translate that
into a habit and I use this framework called when instead of
I will, which is essentially rooted in a current action you
take. So there's no, we're not adding
anything here. So when I build a habit with mid
level leaders, I meet them where they're at.
I'm, I'm not telling them to do something new, I'm telling them
to do something different based on what you're already doing.
So, and this is the framework from Michael Bungay Stanier,
who's a thought leader in this space.
Brilliant guy. But it's when I do a certain
thing and it's triggers. So when I sit down at my desk,
when I stand up to go to the washroom, right?
Like whatever, it's a trigger instead of and oftentimes I
would say instead of checking your e-mail because that's
something we do right, right at the first thing in the morning,
right? Or even instead of turning on my
monitor, old action, I will, and this is the desired action,
write down 1 prospect. I will reach out today or
instead of so if I were to say, when I sit down at my desk,
instead of going to my e-mail, I will go on to sales navigator.
Like that could be another one, right?
And it's again, it's that my James clear vibe of we're just
putting on the left shoe where the gym will come.
But right now we're just putting on the left shoe.
And so, so that's kind of how I approach that to, to say, OK,
here's the, you know, here's the goal.
You know, we want, you know, we want to expand the in the
Midwest by 2X in Q4, but it looks actually like sitting down
at your desk and instead of you going on your e-mail going into
sales navigator. Right.
I think that's a fabulous, fabulous example because we're
all probably like hearing what you're saying and thinking
about, OK, what is the thing that I'm doing that could be a
different habit or that I could do that I could take and
transform into reaching my goals more quickly.
Like even for me as a business owner, for you as a business
owner, like they're probably things that every quarter, every
year that we're thinking like I want more of this or I want to
increase revenue by this much. How do I do that?
And so in in the work that you're doing and what you've
just shared with us, you're helping us to see these
organizations, especially, you know, small to mid size where
there is that gap and it happens every day.
I can even think about like probably 1,000,001 examples
right now where, you know, you have the executive team saying
this is what we're striving for, and then you have those who are
going and executing on that outcome not having any clue as
to how to get there. To your point, like, what does
that actually mean? And I like that you're talking
about changing behaviors or looking at habits as a way to do
that, You know, kind of going back to the inception of your
own career, that it's these small incremental behavior
changes or movements that help us to get to that outcome, that
desired outcome. If I even like take it to
retail, it's like, OK, well, if we're, you know, if a retailer
is saying that they want to increase their, their basket
size by I don't know 10% or something like that.
That they then have to think about are there end caps full do
there do there are there registers open for them to
actually like process people who are waiting in line?
I mean, I go to stores all the time now and it's like mostly
just self checkout. If I think about these like self
checkout moments and you see how many packs of gum are empty and
how there is a cooler full of drinks, right.
If your, if your goal is to maximize basket size, then you
have to make sure that there are things in place like who is that
person that's going to fill those end caps, that's going to
fill those, those lanes? And so whatever example we want
to use, even if we look at like, I don't know, like a, a, a
different type of retailer or luxury or whatever, there has
those moments where we take the message, to your point, the
message that the executive team is, is disseminating and then
like putting it into this like real life tangible experience.
There has to be that to your point, translation or
communication in order for the adoption.
And something that I often say is that when the further removed
we get from like the frontline employee, the harder it is to
actually think about or realize what that experience is like.
And I always say that we have to meet people where they are.
We have to really figure out how we take this higher level like,
OK, this is our goal and make it mean something for the person
unloading a truck or cleaning or bussing a table or I don't know,
delivering newspapers everyday, right, Whatever that might be.
And and that is sometimes I think a big miss for leaders at
the executive level and and maybe even below the executive
level too. I think mid managers, certainly
this is a key population that you focus on.
They have an opportunity also to to your point to manage up and
say, hey, this is what these people experience every day.
And then also to make it relevant for the people at the
front line based on what that that outcome goal is.
I'm really glad you bring that up.
And the entire time you were talking in my head, I'm like,
This is why the mid layer is so critical and This is why I focus
there, right? Like I, I actually played with
the idea of working exclusively, exclusively with executive
teams. And at one of my clients, it was
a bigger client. So I did have a couple different
streams of leadership development and I, I worked with
individual contributors as well, which I loved.
I loved every single and if anyone at soft choice is
listening to this, I love everyone and building leaders so
much. But it is true.
The mid level it's it's critical because they are that
translations, that translation piece, right?
And they they are often, I would say as well, to your point,
Tracy, because they're a little bit closer to the ground.
Usually the group that has been there the longest and has the
highest level of respect across the across the organization
because the executives love them because they're loyal and they,
they've proven themselves. And you know, if we're talking
about a midsize company, they may have started as an intern or
an associate and they're now a director, right?
And if we're talking about the new hires, they've probably been
hired by Joe when Joe is a manager and now Joe is a
director and Cindy, who Joe hired is now a manager, right?
And it's like the, the, what I'm trying to say is the mid level
leaders have the respect and it's so, and I feel very
passionately about the fact that a lot of them are stretched too
thin. And again, that's not, I'm not,
I'm not pointing blame at anyone or it's, it's just a business
reality. But there's a way we can
overcome that. And it it is about, you know,
figuring out what behaviors are needed to actually get the
organization where it needs to go in a way that makes people
feel sane. Right.
Yeah. And I think another cool thing
about habits that I've learned is when adopted meaningfully.
And I will say that I, anyone who takes my program has a 75 to
85% adoption rate with the habits that they practice.
So that means that they're actively participating and, and
actively practicing it every day.
And it's sticking. That's what adoption rate means.
They start to see the habit that they practice at work translate
into their personal life. And that is another reason why I
find this work so meaningful. I can give you an example.
So I very recently just engaged an architecture firm with a 30
day habit Sprint. And part of one of the habits
that a group of people practiced was around ownership.
And it was when I sit down at my desk, instead of turning on my
monitor, I will write down three things I can do in under 5
minutes to help move my priorities forward.
And I'll, I'll, I'll say that, I'll say that again.
When I sit down at my desk instead of turning on my
monitor, I will write down three things I can do in under 5
minutes to move my priorities forward.
And before I talk about the outcome, I'll pause and just say
why that is so important. Because oftentimes when we build
habits, especially coming out of training sessions, we are
absolutely full of piss and vinegar and want to make a list
of 15 things that we can do before 9:00 AM.
And it just, it's not going to happen, right?
And it goes back to that, James Clear, put your left shoe on
before you go to the gym. The same thing with habits and
again, if someone were to, if someone was listening to this
and looking to implement habits and their organization, first,
call me, I'm available to talk to you about it and and support
you with it. But second of all, make sure
it's easy for people like very, very distilled down like that
sales navigator example as well. Just getting on the platform.
Anyway, so I digress. So this person practice the
habit of sitting down at their desk and making A to do list of
three things. And he said to me, Steven, after
30 days and my habit sprints are usually 30 days.
James Cleric says it takes up to 60 to have, you know, a
behaviour turn into an automatic thing.
But we've seen anywhere over 21 days for the habit to start to
stick. So I do 30.
But anyway, after 30 days, Steven, of making this list and
checking it twice, I've shown up to less stressed.
I am running like, you know, huge important architectural
projects that involve lots of different pieces, construction,
design, etcetera. And it's high stress and I'm
able to manage it better because of this list.
And then he said to me on top of it all, I have a 5 month old at
home and because of my list building abilities, I'm able to
put my 5 month old down for a nap and bang out double the
amount of stuff that I was able to do before.
And it's helped me significantly be more present with my kid and
also my wife. My wife's not complaining and I
was. Kind of like.
And I was no, and I'm like, that is fucking awesome that that is
the point of this work. And another example was with
eliminating distractions. Another group that I worked
with, they practiced when I'm in a meeting and and I get an IM,
instead of opening it I will pause and ask myself if the I AM
is worth it. Oh, I could totally adopt that
one. Yeah, I probably should.
It's brilliant. And after they were practicing
it for about 10 days, one of the young men in the group brought
it home and he only had an hour or two with his son every night.
And he was getting pings from AVP and he didn't answer them.
He at he used to have it and he was like, I was able to spend
the time with my son and to get back to the VP because when I
put him down for bed, I just got to the IMS. Then it and, and,
and again, it's, it's when we're in these high growth, mid size
environments and we're in a mid level leader role where
everything is on our shoulders. We have this pressure, this
really hard pressure to just attack everything as it comes.
But if we're able to build these sustainable habits, especially
when we're able to build and pause, which is another thing
that I love to do with my habits as well, we can do more and we
can do things differently because it just allows us that 5
seconds to think, is this now or is this later, right?
Yeah, I think that's fabulous. I mean, there's so many Nuggets
of wisdom in this episode. I think, you know, even when I
think about being a mom myself and how I can totally relate to
that one person in your example that, you know, you're getting
pings that really feel very urgent.
Emails, pings, whatever calls, texts, could be anything.
And how you prioritize what you want to be present for.
Same at work, by the way, whether you're present at work,
present in your personal life, it really makes a lot of sense
that, you know, you part of creating habits can also be
creating boundaries and then, you know, establishing those
things as habits and, and really it's totally translatable to
anything. I think.
So Steven, this has been like super fun and insightful and I
am feeling really inspired to think about the my own
interactions with my own, like work and personal life and what
habits I might want to to create, Especially like, you
know, we're recording when we're going into a new year.
So maybe it's a maybe it's a good time for it, even though
this episode will come out after the new year has begun.
But it's never too late to create some good habits.
But if, if someone listening is equally as inspired as I am, if
not more, where can they reach out?
Where can they learn more about you and maybe even bring your
your fabulous practices to their own organizations?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm, as you can tell, very
friendly guy. I love to connect with everyone.
So find me on LinkedIn and I think Tracy, you'll provide my
LinkedIn in the bio or information of this podcast.
Find me on LinkedIn, Shoot me a message or, you know, keep an
eye out for any of my posts and drop me a comment or, or
anything like that. And, and I'll be sure to get
back to you. LinkedIn is the best place to
find me. And outside of that, if anyone
is looking to practice habits going into to the new year, even
if this comes out after start on a Monday, start laughably small.
Keep it simple and use something.
Start it with a trigger based thing based on what you're
already doing, like sitting down, standing up, checking your
e-mail, etcetera. Amazing.
Steven, this is fabulous. And yes, you're totally right.
We will have everything linked so that it's easy for everyone
to to get connected with you. And this has been so awesome.
So thank you so much for your time.
My pleasure. Hey.
Just before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the.
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Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.