MA Business Success 95: Leadership and Management

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Graham: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Martial Arts Business Success, episode number 95. Goodness, we're on number 95.

Phil: Ninety-five. That means 5 more until 100 episodes.

Graham: Wow, okay.

Phil: [inaudible 00:00:22], our century. So, well, I think we're going to have a bit of a party.

Graham: Yes, we will indeed. Look, today we're going to lead into leadership success but also management success. And I guess this is something that...recently we took our team away for a weekend of team-building, some lockdown on some training and what-not, and part of what we decided was we have some values. I know in some of the previous podcasts we talked about culture, mission, vision, values. We also solidified a little bit more of the values and the mantra for our leadership team. And there was three sort of keywords that we discussed, and the way that it was kind of done...so first one, I guess, the kind of easy words, and then I'll give you the level up words, which was "see, say, and synergize." And really what it means is to see is the insight, is what you say is the influence you have on people, okay. And I guess the last one, which is to synergize together. Now, really what we're trying to do is the interaction that you guys have. So when I talk about insight, Phil, what do we do as a senior...we're talking about leadership here. How do you foresee things? What do you need to see, as a manager or a leader who only just sees this and misses the whole scope, what could occur? What are the value points in that regards?

Phil: I guess it's the same as a pirate ship and you got people swabbing the decks, and you've got the captain up stair, the captain is looking out with the sight glass and they're looking, they're scanning and navigating. And they're looking for dangerous waters and they're navigating around them. So having good insight means forward planning, forward seeing about the troubles or the issues, or even the successes that are happening in the future, and guiding the team to those successes, avoiding those troubled waters, so to speak.

Graham: Look, I've got a little bit of an example that we have with one of our managers where we're having our staff meetings and I started to identify that some of his team had been missing on some of the social events and the Christmas ball, the wrap up last year. And I said, "Mate, if you're not careful, you may find that you've got a disharmony in your team and you're probably going to find that guy's going to quit." Within three hours of that meeting, I got a phone call and he goes, "Oh my god, the guy that you talked about, he's handed in his resignation." I went, like, "Damn."

But what it was is I had enough insight and enough foresight to start going, "Something's not quite right there." And you need to see that...I think it's really important we talk about this as a leader. You can't just simply come in and then lead from the front. Leading from the front is a great way where people follow you, but there's moments of time where as a leader you need to lead from the front, you need to be part of the pack, sometimes you need to push from behind. So you need to make sure that you're able to adapt in all those areas. And I guess the second part to this was the way that we say what you were actually saying, how you influence in your words, how you also act, as we discussed, but when you see and you say, two very important things that you need to do. How you see a situation and what you say in that. So what else are we doing to really help to influence our crew, our staff, our team, from a management level or a leadership level?

Phil: I think there's two things that come to my mind. It's got to be what you do, so you lead by example, by the things that you do, but what trumps that is how you do it. So what you say versus how you say it. Same thing. You might say the right thing but how you did it was wrong, or how you approached that situation, or chatting to your team, or training that student, what you said was right but how you said it was wrong. Or maybe what you said was right and...I've confused myself now...and how you said it was the wrong way as well. So at the end of the day, I want to make sure that if we're saying and doing those [inaudible 00:04:15] and having influence, you want to have influence on showing people and telling people, guiding people and pushing people.

Graham: Something that I've got a couple of...again another story that we've had recently, was one of our managers had something he wanted to say and was doing it a little bit in jest and a little bit going off-the-cuff, said it to a general manager just as they flew past the copywriter or whatever it was, sorry, the photocopier, and said a few things that probably wasn't the right time to say it. So again timing, again how you say it, and I guess I'd go back to that insight, that influence. The reason why it was the wrong time was he had his staff in the room. There was other guys there that were training that were being influenced by his, I guess, words, and what he was saying, and his actions. Although it wasn't directed at them, by him just being jovial, it flows down the hill and things were, "If he can do that, so can I."

Again, that's also where, I guess, the interaction part of the synergizing comes into play, and the reason why we've got three keywords for you guys who are listening in on this, I want you to visualize a triangle and instead of a triangle where the point is at the top, the point is actually inverted at the bottom. And the reason why in our management, our foundation, sort of metric, it's a triangle, it's the strongest shape in the universe. Strongest shape out there, most structured, but it needs to have all three sides working together to stay at that strength. Plus when I talk about the triangle being inverted so the point's at the bottom, and then it opens up to the straight line at the top, as a leader, you should be at the bottom doing everything you possibly can to help your team at the top. And that is getting out of their way and empowering them and being the very best.

If you flip it on its head, which is what most organizations are like, the boss is at the top and then it flows downhill. Well, that's why we change things around. So if I just go back to that interaction again, it's how you socialize and the minimal sort of socializing that we do, and I've spoken about this at length in quite a few of the other podcasts. To be social is one of those things, but we also want to make sure that we have that hierarchy and that order. Phil, can you remember what we say to our crew and our guys about who we are first, and obviously friends and whatnot right down the line?

Phil: Yeah, that's something that stayed true with me [inaudible 00:06:41] instructor as well, and something you have to learn because even like me and you, Graham, you know, we've been friends, we've been students together, and we've been work colleagues, and now we're bosses and directors together. So there has to be the clear defining moments in your life, and time, and day, and week, and month, and years where you're friends at some certain point, you're an instructor or a colleague at another point and then you're a boss and you got to wear those hats. So you've got to sort of say...if for me personally with my staff, I say, "I'm your boss first. First and foremost my decisions are based on being your boss, and being that captain, seeing the ship and guiding the direction of where we're going. I'm your instructor second, and that's where some respect needs to come in, as your instructor, as your teacher teaching you martial arts, and I'm your friend last." And it's really, really hard, especially when you've got friends that work for you, but you have to have those three levels of, I guess, respect, because at the end of the day, once they're blurred, well, geez, you know. You're creating an environment that is good for nobody.

Graham: Yeah, and look, that's where I went back with that little story I was saying before was the manager who had a bit of an off-the-cuff comment to the general manager, they're not social on a personal level outside of our location, but they're friendly. But the thing was, it was the wrong time to say this stuff because he had a lot of other team around him that, as a leader, that really demotes him as that leadership figure. So again going back to those three things, it's that insight, it's that influence, and it's basically making sure that, you know, that interaction that you have with your team. So there's those three key areas.

So again, team, this is something that we use as our upper leadership, I guess, mantra, morals, values that we want to hold. And each of those has an infinite explanation of how that can be applied on a daily, weekly, monthly level, how they deal with situations versus team education, all the above. Really important to try and ascertain and understand how we've been able to grow some great leaders, great managers, and again as they grow in their job role, they'll run area managers, they will run different divisions of the different companies that we set up and build for them. So if you guys want to have a strong team, it starts from that foundation. I can't insist on that enough.

Phil: Hey guys if you really enjoy this type of interaction like learning upper-level management stuff, whether you're there or not, I hope you've all got aspirations and dreams to have a business big enough to have a team. And if you've already got a team, well fantastic, but if you want to be involved and see what Graham's talking about, our mastermind, Tim and mastermind and the guys who are on the online content, they get access to our weekly managers' meeting here for an hour. Sixty minutes of watching Graham talk and influence and interact and have the insight with our upper management, our branch managers and our two [inaudible 00:09:41] here in this room. Maybe Ras our video editor can just show a video of that right here and give you guys a bit of a view of what that meeting looks like, and then hopefully we can see you guys there as well, live, adding some value or adding some questions that we can then access for our live later Q and A. So I really hope you'll be there.

So guys, if that interests you, go to our website tima.com.au, sign up for the mastermind, sign up for the online course, and we will give you guys some great access to behind the curtain book on how to run a martial arts school. I'm talking about these instructors, managers are all running million-dollar martial arts schools, guys, so if you can't learn something from them, then geez, I don't know what's going on.

Graham: Hey, proximity is power. We say this often, you're the average of the five people you hang around, so why wouldn't you want to be around more people that are doing it at a higher level on a regular basis. And I know that I don't get a chance to sit in the car with Gary Vaynerchuk personally, but if I have him on a podcast or I have him on a video blog, whatever that may be, I do get to hang out. I get to hang out with this fine gentleman on a regular basis. But again, listening to him on a podcast or a video thing is about surrounding yourself with those right type of people. So guys, the live Q and As that we have are A plus. The fact that we got live meetings so you can see exactly what's happening in real world, really important guys. And look, we'll continue to do it. We'd love to have you there though, but you've got to be taking action. So get on board, team.

Phil: All right guys, you take care. Have a great week.