Camille Rapacz: Welcome back listeners to this next episode of The Belief Shift. We're gonna do something a little bit different today.
Camille Rapacz: Today we are without George. So sorry he had a Tesla emergency, which maybe he'll tell us about next time. I know if you're rolling your eyes, cuz. If you rolling your eyes, because my brother drives a Tesla. I mean, he is a tech nerd and it's a computer on wheels. So what are you gonna do?
Camille Rapacz: So today we had scheduled my lovely guest, Laurel Martin, to join us. So I decided since George couldn't be here, that Laurel and I would co-host together like George and I usually do. We'll just have a nice chat.
Camille Rapacz: So Laurel is here because I adore her and we are good friends and colleagues and have done lots of work together and we think very similarly and align on lots of things that we do. But we also have some different takes on things. We kind of have worked together and expanded each other's thinking.
Camille Rapacz: I don't wanna steal her thunder and not let her introduce herself. But today we are gonna talk about this topic of respect for people and we're gonna do a little nerding out on it. That's what we do, right, Laurel?
Laurel Martin: Yeah, sounds fun.
Camille: Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful small business.
Camille: I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: small business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille Rapacz: So go ahead and introduce yourself and then I'll get a, give a little bit more about this topic and why we're talking about it.
Laurel Martin: All right.
Laurel Martin: Well, thanks for having me on. I'm Laurel Martin. I'm a business coach who helps leaders and teams and individuals define what it is they're trying to achieve with clarity, and then pursue that dream in a structured and rigorous manner, but also with a whole lot of compassion. And I help people design better work so better for them and for their teammates and for their customers.
Laurel Martin: Interestingly, I'm kind of straddling the two worlds between kind of George's world and Camille's world right now because just last week I left my corporate job to strike out on my own as a solopreneur with a desire to work with small purpose driven companies. So I'm all the more interested in this podcast now cuz it's like, ooh, yes, that's gonna help me.
Laurel Martin: As Camille said, I've worked with her for a number of years as a client, so she's been both my personal coach earlier in my career and a consultant for companies I've worked with. I think we see eye to eye and what drives businesses to be successful and we just learn from one another. So it's an absolute honor to be on this podcast.
Laurel Martin: I've been listening to the very first episode and just like nodding vigorously the whole time.
Laurel Martin: I bummed I won't be able to meet George because I feel like he's, he's kind of my carpooling buddy. Like, I listen to you guys on the commute and I always find his story so fascinating. So I don't think I can actually fill his role here as co-host, but looking forward to adding him into this, this conversation later.
Camille Rapacz: I can tell you already. I know that you're gonna be back on the podcast, so you will definitely get to meet him at some point, but yeah. That's funny. You talk about, he's like your carpool buddy. I totally get that. I like the idea of being people's carpool buddies as we're talking about nerdy business stuff.
Laurel Martin: Yeah, I talked to you guys. You just don't know it. You can't, you can't respond.
Camille Rapacz: That's perfect.
Camille Rapacz: So today we are going to go through this topic that we are calling, I'm calling Respect for People, and it's a, leader behavior or a guiding principle in business that Laurel and I have really, it's kind of been foundational to work that we have done together, but I think also the work that we do, just in general, the way that we approach the work that we do.
Camille Rapacz: And for me, trying to raise the performance of a business and doing it in a way that is actually enjoyable for the humans that are in the business and experiencing, connecting with that business. We're really talking about this aspect of business where sometimes we think about what's right for the people is in conflict with what's right for the business.
Camille Rapacz: And you definitely see businesses making decisions that are in conflict with what the people want. Because business is business and they're making decisions based on money. But there are so many opportunities to do things that are both good for the people and for the business.
Camille Rapacz: So the bottom line can get better while the people have better experiences. Those two things, sometimes we look at them as like being in conflict. And I think it's really the opposite. If you do it right, if you really invest in the people side, the dollars are gonna improve. right?
Camille Rapacz: And not that there aren't tough choices to make sometimes you can't always do everything that every human in your company wants you to do, but there's ways to do this.
Camille Rapacz: So this respect for people concept, I think is one that we just don't think about deeply enough in business, and that's really why I wanted to tackle it. Of all these like leader behaviors that we talk about, I think it's a really good one to just get into and. And talk about what it means. So let's define this first.
Camille Rapacz: It was funny when I was going through and defining this Laurel in my notes, and then you had sent me your notes. I was like, oh yeah, we literally have the same three levels. Of course we do, right? Like of course we have this. So yes, we have these same three levels of how we think about respect for people.
Camille Rapacz: I'm just gonna describe the three really briefly, and then Laurel, you and I can just talk about some examples to really like fill in the gaps of helping people understand what this means. Because if right now you're thinking, yeah, of course I'm respectful to my people, stay tuned because what we're really talking about probably goes deeper than what you're thinking right now.
Camille Rapacz: So the most basic level is, be nice to people. Of course you should be like that kind of person all the time.
Camille Rapacz: Level two is we are gonna appreciate and value each other whether both from the sense of where we have commonalities and also where we have differences. So that's level two, more of an appreciation of each other.
Camille Rapacz: But level three gets into the growth and development piece and really focuses more on how we approach the work and not just what work we do. And this goes beyond just, I have a performance plan or I have goals. So we'll get into what that means. But we're gonna mostly talk about this level three version of it.
Camille Rapacz: But before we do that, let's give some examples so people understand what we're really talking about. So, Laurel, do you have a good example from just this basic level? One of like, respect for people means be nice to people.
Laurel Martin: Sure. Yeah. I mean, these are things that you can think of as like common politeness. So, you know, don't be rude, don't interrupt, ask how people's day are going. Hold the door open. That kind of thing where like, yeah, of course, let's have some common courtesy with one another.
Camille Rapacz: And you know, it's funny cuz I don't want a poopa on this. Like, you know, it's just level one because some of us need to be reminded to be nice all the time because, you know, you get busy and you start moving so fast and you're like, oh I, that was rude. Why didn't I hold the door open for that person? Or, you know, it, it does take some energy.
Camille Rapacz: So I don't wanna minimize the importance of this level of be nice. That should just be your mantra in the day, right?
Laurel Martin: Yeah, and you know, when we're stressed out we tend to cut corners on this stuff, so still good to pay attention to.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, absolutely. But that's just level one.
Camille Rapacz: When we get into level two, this appreciate and value each other. Do you have some good examples of that one, Laurel?
Laurel Martin: Yeah. You know, one that we're all kind of still doing the work on here is to understand how what we say and do with the best of intentions might land differently on someone depending on their, where they're coming from, whatever their life experience was or their background. So really important to understand, you know, people's perspective and their frame of reference.
Laurel Martin: And if they look like they're not happy with something you're saying that you thought they were going to be excited about, like, ooh, maybe that's a chance to learn something from each other and just notice those feelings and explore them together.
Camille Rapacz: That makes me think of something I hadn't thought of before on this one, which is level two is sort of a, read the room or pay attention to people. Like pay attention to how people are reacting and responding and just noticing that everybody's having a different experience and especially that people are having a different experience than you are having.
Camille Rapacz: I think that's the hardest one. You and I have actually had this experience where we're like, wait, they didn't, that's, that's how they took that? Oh shoot. That's not what we thought was gonna happen. You know,
Laurel Martin: And you've been on the other hand of people's, like, they say something that they think is, you know, gonna be helpful or it's just innocuous and you're like, oh, what? Like super offended by it. So trying to increase this dialogue and you know, figure this thing out of humans working together. We're complex beings, so level two is not easy. This is actually really hard. It's just this whole like interpersonal web.
Laurel Martin: But if we start from that place of appreciating one another and kinda a curious mindset of like, Ooh, I wonder what they're thinking about that, I think that can be helpful.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. And this does make me think about the human connection topic that we talked about, which this is where this lives, right? This is the like, just try to connect with people. Don't try to be right or wrong, but seek to understand. Connect with somebody. Try to be in their shoes.
Camille Rapacz: And try to just understand the experience that they're having is different. Even if you can't relate to that experience. Cuz honestly we can't. Right? Where I have my experiences because of my life and who I am, and you have yours cuz of your life and who you are. And the more different, the more diversity we have, the more differences of experience we have, which is why diversity is so valuable.
Camille Rapacz: We want all these different perspectives that add up to something greater than if we're in a little echo chamber of we all think the same way.
Laurel Martin: Yeah, absolutely. That human connection concept is a great one for thinking about how can we truly care about what people have to say. I'm not just asking to check a box. We really wanna learn and broaden our horizons.
Camille Rapacz: Yes. Because we have genuine curiosity. Right? This is where I always talk about how George is so good at just being Mr. Curious. And it's genuine for him. Like he just really wants to know. Because that's fun for him. And I think lots of us don't have that sort of innate, just curiosity in our brain.
Camille Rapacz: So you have to work a little harder to build it. But I will say that once you practice this for a while, it does just start to come naturally. So while, you know, you said this can be hard to do. Absolutely. You do have to be intentional and have like a conscious choice of doing it. But the more you do it, the more natural it becomes.
Camille Rapacz: So it can just become more part of the way that you do things. So don't feel like, oh my gosh, that's just too much work. Maybe in the beginning. But it, it's like any habit that you create or any routine, once you build that up, it gets a little easier. So don't give up on that.
Laurel Martin: I think it's a skill you can cultivate and also it goes along with this theme of vulnerability and that you'll actually be a better leader even if in the moment it feels terrifying to be like, oh, I, it looks like we're not on the same page. What? Tell me what you're thinking right now.
Laurel Martin: Or instead of just, you know, laying out the agenda. Okay, we're gonna move on with this step 1, 2, 3, here we go. Maybe asking, pausing to say, how's that sound? What are your concerns with this?
Laurel Martin: Again, really terrifying cuz someone could say, I don't agree with this entire thing and we're gonna blow this up. Yeah, start over. But then again, if they're thinking it anyway, aren't you better off just kind of having the dialogue?
Camille Rapacz: Absolutely. Better to know than to not know. It's gonna hit you one way or another.
Laurel Martin: Yep.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah.
Camille Rapacz: So let's get into level three, because this is the one where I think the true benefit really starts to show up for both the people and the business in a way that we might not expect.
Camille Rapacz: So this is where we focus on growth and development, or we focus on how we're doing the work, not just what that work is. So let's talk about some examples in this spot.
Camille Rapacz: What do you think, Laurel?
Laurel Martin: I think that this is really cool. This is where respect for people ends up being the kind of complimentary necessary aside to continuous performance improvement that we talked about a few episodes back.
Laurel Martin: Humans are the only source of innovation. Just saying. It'll be interesting to see how this changes with machine learning, because maybe that becomes not true.
Laurel Martin: But the entire human history up to this point, if you wanted something to work better, a human had to come up with an idea and figure it out. Whether that was hunting and gathering, or building castles or manufacturing stuff, humans are the only true source of improvement.
Laurel Martin: Not only do we wanna value their perspective and ideas, you know, no matter how wacky they might sound or how different their perspective is from ours. We really wanna focus on that as like, that's our job as leaders is to challenge people to be and do their very best, and then support them through that journey.
Laurel Martin: Building clarity and competence so people can make decisions on their own, you know, add their own ideas, maybe struggle a little bit, and fail and figure things out on their own. So we wanna give people the space and the skill, building the support they need to exercise and cultivate their strengths.
Laurel Martin: We wanna help them unleash their full potential.
Laurel Martin: Now, if you're a solopreneur, this might sound like, oh, that doesn't really apply to me. And maybe it doesn't apply to you as often as if you have a team. But I encourage you to think more broadly about relationships, whether that's in your business. So maybe it's with a vendor or a collaborator, or a virtual assistant or even in your personal life.
Laurel Martin: You didn't hear it from me, but some of these things work with your spouse and children. When you're clear on what good looks like, and then you develop the capabilities of another person to be able to do that thing and, and coach them through the problem solving as they're trying to do it. That means you're, you're growing Their ability to contribute. And the good news for you is that you're doubling your capacity.
Laurel Martin: So there's a real win-win here. You can engage another brain in addition to your own, to work on furthering whatever your purpose might be. So to be a good boss, yeah, it's not enough to just be nice all the time. In fact, that's actually kind of counterproductive. You have to push people a bit and let them step into their skills.
Laurel Martin: That means you've gotta let go a little bit. You've gotta let them struggle just enough, but not leave them out on their own in the wilderness.
Laurel Martin: That's a mistake we can talk about, but really kind of enter into this leader team member relationship or coach learner relationship with respect and, and caring.
Laurel Martin: That's what we really want is for the people in our business to flourish so the business itself can flourish.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, you said it so beautifully. I think that the idea of people flourishing, we're all on board with this, right? Like, of course I want other people to flourish, and of course I want the people in my business or connecting to my business to flourish.
Camille Rapacz: I think where we get tripped up is, but then how is it my responsibility? What am I supposed to do about that? So as a small business owner or a business leader or, or anybody, really a parent to your point, right? A spouse. Like, how am I helping to enrich this other person? Even in relationships, we might tend to forget that that's part of what this relationship is about.
Camille Rapacz: Like we're also here to help enrich each other, to help each other flourish, in whatever way that we do that.
Camille Rapacz: But in business, we're always thinking about we need to get X results in the business. And we skip the step often of, oh, if I want X result, I just need to help my people flourish in a specific way in order to get that result right.
Camille Rapacz: For example, it might be maybe I need my team to be better at prioritizing their own work. Then they're not waiting on me. They understand priorities clearly. They can get work done more efficiently, effectively. They also feel more empowered. They feel more pride in their work cuz they have more ownership cuz they're setting priorities.
Camille Rapacz: But you can't just say, Hey, go set some priorities, but you know, you decide. You have to guide them in how to set the right priorities in your business.
Camille Rapacz: This is the leaning into the idea of supporting their growth and their development. And you do wanna do it in a specific way because you still have specific outcomes you need to get in the business.
Camille Rapacz: So they can't just go choose whatever priority is willy-nilly. But when you do that, there are these long-term benefits, right? So you might be feeling like, well, I don't have time to do all of that. But if you don't do it, you're forever gonna have to do this task of telling them what's the most important thing to do. When you could invest upfront. And then long term, they're managing that on themselves.
Camille Rapacz: And now that's a task that's no longer on your list to do every day, right? So, Thinking this long term, and it benefits everybody. It benefits you, it benefits them, it benefits the company. There are so many examples like that where I think, I think of this as you know, we, we talk about, we think about growth and development.
Camille Rapacz: We think about creating the performance plan or helping our employees set goals or whatever that is, or even for ourselves. So even if you think for yourself, like, I'm setting my own goals. I know lots of people that write their goals up, here's what I'm gonna get done in my business, but then they don't take it far enough into like, well, how am I actually gonna do that? What am I really gonna do?
Camille Rapacz: So respect for people can also apply to ourselves. Like, am I setting myself up for success? But then also for those people in your business, just giving them goals. That's not going far enough. You need to then guide them in what's the right way to actually achieve these goals.
Camille Rapacz: Where do I need to help them and coach them? And all the stuff that you said, to help them actually be able to do this well. So there is another level here that we're talking about, but if you connect the dots on doing that work as an investment in your business and in your people, it has these long-term benefits.
Camille Rapacz: And I think that is essentially why it's so hard is it is more of a long-term investment. And as humans, we are just notoriously bad at that.
Laurel Martin: Oh, totally. These payoffs are not super long term. They're just not immediate. And I think it's this fallacy that so many leaders fall into of like, I'm so busy, I just have to get stuff done. I have to produce results. So I'm not gonna take the time to do any of that team development stuff.
Laurel Martin: I'm just gonna tell people what they need to do, or I'm gonna put 'em into a role and sink or swim. It's doing everyone a disservice. I mean, first of all, it's kind of setting up those people to fail, right? If you're like, well, I'm just gonna wish and hope that they do it the way I would.
Laurel Martin: Or, you know, that they can figure this thing out despite, you know, whatever obstacles may come their way. But also, like you said, it's kind of putting you as a leader into this trap of, well, then you're gonna be the answer person and the goal setter and like the only brain that's fully engaged, if that's the way you manage people.
Laurel Martin: So wouldn't you love a little help with that?
Camille Rapacz: Imagine how exhausting that will be, right?
Camille Rapacz: If you're the only brain who's doing all that stuff, you just can't. When we talk about the idea of creating a small business that is both profitable and sustainable, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
Camille Rapacz: You have to do this level of the work if you want it to be something that can sustain because you being the only thing that sustains the business, I hope nobody really
Laurel Martin: Yeah. That's overwhelming.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, in my definition of a high performance business, that's not it. You do not end up being the only reason that that business can survive. You have to have partnerships and people who are helping you make that go. So you have to have some level of team.
Camille Rapacz: Even as a solopreneur, we talk about this all the time, you still need help at some level. You're gonna need a virtual assistant or a bookkeeper, somebody, right? You're gonna need some help in order to make this go, cuz the business itself is a complicated little entity and you can't possibly be an expert in all those spaces. So you're gonna need help in different places at different times.
Laurel Martin: Yeah.
Laurel Martin: And even just that like seeking advice from people can be a form of respect. Like, maybe you don't work for me or we don't even really work together, but like, Hey, I just wanna pick your brain on this or thought partner a little bit. Can I share something with you? Can you tell me what you would do in my shoes?
Laurel Martin: So we can still do this even if we're like working on our own. We can involve other people in making our product, our services richer by getting that human connection.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. That idea of asking somebody for help or for guidance or for support, asking somebody anything of them, whether it's just their time or for them to do something for you, I. We always think like, well, I don't wanna do that cuz I don't wanna burden them. Right? But it's the opposite.
Camille Rapacz: As you just said, if you put it into this concept of, oh, but this is showing respect, because I wouldn't ask them, if I didn't value them in some way. I'm asking them specifically because I value their opinion or I value their knowledge, or I value their skillset. Right. That's why you're asking them.
Camille Rapacz: How you then go about asking, coming from this place of, I'm coming at this because I respect you. You're not burdening them. You're offering them opportunity to do what all humans really wanna do as we all wanna help each other at the end of the day.
Laurel Martin: Yeah. And that's another thing I think leaders can get wrong about this idea of well I don't wanna, you know, burden them. I don't wanna put too much on them. I don't want them to like see the whole picture, cuz that might stress them out. It's like, well most of us don't wanna just sit around bored all day at work, like pressing the same button over and over again.
Laurel Martin: It's kind of interesting and fun to be involved in new challenges or to have our, you know, our idea or our opinion sought. So yeah, let's make work interesting too.
Camille Rapacz: Exactly. Make it interesting and fulfilling and rewarding in whatever way we can. So this really leads right into our next topic on this, which is I wanna talk about some examples of where this has gone wrong, where respect for people has been done wrong. I'll give my example first and then I, you can add on to this Laurel, cuz I'm sure we both have many and probably both obvious ones. And then maybe think of a less obvious one.
Camille Rapacz: So mine is very recent in my work with a client so they that we were having these conversations around communication and one of the leaders said, you know, I realized that I have been not communicating a lot of this information because I didn't wanna overwhelm people with too much information.
Camille Rapacz: But it led to the problem of nobody was informed about what was going on. And so that was creating all sorts of issues. And I realized, oh, he thinks he's respecting his team by deciding what was like, what's the right level of information to give them.
Camille Rapacz: And my translation was, oh, you didn't respect your team enough to respect that they have the ability to handle any amount of information you send them.
Camille Rapacz: So instead of respecting that, like, I'm gonna give this information and I trust their smart, talented people and they're gonna be able to handle it. You sort of were throttling that back cuz you, which to me was for him, he thought that was the respect. And I was flipping it around to know the respectful thing would've been to just give them all the information.
Camille Rapacz: Even if that means you wanna say, Hey, I hope I'm not overwhelming you with too much information, but I just want you to have all of this so you can, you know, make sense of it yourselves.
Camille Rapacz: That would've been the most respectful thing to do. So what we ended up with, his approach ended up just, they were under inform and there were a bunch of questions, which when people are under inform, guess what they do?
Camille Rapacz: They make up
Laurel Martin: Oh, yep.
Camille Rapacz: crazy story and it's probably got a conspiracy theory in it and there's like all sorts of stuff going on, right? So all the, I heard this and just like none of it was true. But people fill in the gaps when there's gaps of information. So that was my example of where I think somebody thought they were being respectful of people in their decision and it was actually doing the opposite.
Laurel Martin: Yeah. Robbing people of the chance to think for themselves
Camille Rapacz: Yeah.
Laurel Martin: probably gonna backfire.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. Or making the decision for them of what overwhelm actually looks like.
Camille Rapacz: Like you made a judgment about what you thought would overwhelm them. That's their choice to make, not your choice to make.
Camille Rapacz: All right. Do you have some good examples?
Laurel Martin: I do. You know, I, I think we can all think of blatant ways that, you know, disrespect for people happens. I'm sure as a listener, as we've been talking, you're, you've been thinking of all these instances where this is happening to you, or it's happened recently. You know, maybe your comments were dismissed or, yeah.
Laurel Martin: Camille and Laurel, just talking over all of your thoughts. You know, maybe your viewpoint was overlooked, maybe someone like kind of snickered at a question you asked instead of taking it seriously. If you were observing from the sidelines, like these meetings or these kind of boss subordinate interactions, you can spot these things that are much harder to like self-police yourself on, but you'd know them, you know them when you see them.
Laurel Martin: I did wanna talk about a more subtle way that companies get this wrong. It's to simultaneously overburden people while underutilizing them. So they stack them with so much to do that individuals, you know, might not even have the time to like eat dinner with their family, let alone learn and grow and reflect and do all the things we're talking about on this podcast.
Laurel Martin: I think one of the, the worst sins that a leader can commit is when they don't realize the strengths that others on the team could contribute. And they're just gonna load you up with a whole bunch of other stuff and too bad if you could have done more. So, you know, this is kind of a heartbreaking example from a, a company in my past, the executive assistant was the most empathic, intuitive person.
Laurel Martin: She had super high eq, which no one else in the company really did. And just a way of caring about people and drawing out their thoughts that can be really helpful in a, in a business and in leading a team to, you know, go a certain way. And her boss, I think, actually saw that and valued it, but she was so overburdened with all of the, the requests coming her way and the mindless busy work.
Laurel Martin: Those higher skills were way underutilized and the organization was missing out.
Camille Rapacz: It still is. Mm-hmm. I know of whom you speak.
Camille Rapacz: It's really unfortunate. I've seen that happen pretty consistently. And sometimes it's because we get in this trap of, well, they do their job so well. I can't imagine having to replace them, which now you're literally holding them back from their potential, which is the worst, most opposite of respect for people you can imagine.
Laurel Martin: Yeah, and it might not feel like you're doing that intentionally. But this is why it's really important to kind of go back to that level two definition of respect and like, hopefully you know something about what that person Is interested in and what things they want to cultivate and what they wanna spend their time on and what they wanna grow into so that you can be looking for those opportunities versus just loading them up with everything that's needed today.
Laurel Martin: But I also would be remiss not to talk about my own experience here as a disrespectful boss lady. So when I was a new manager, if, if the, my former employees happened to be listening to me, I hope you're like, yeah. Told you so. I thought that a definition of being a good manager was I need to figure out my vision and my goals, and then I need to divide up the work and I need to give everyone their tasks.
Laurel Martin: I knew enough not to micromanage that, like they weren't super detailed tasks, but I did not collaborate on the vision setting and the goal setting piece. I didn't ask them what they wanted to do. It was more like, okay, here's what the business needs. Now you can kind of, I don't know, do whatever sounds interesting of from that.
Laurel Martin: It was just very top down and I thought that I was providing clear direction and like, well, of course they need some set of like guiding instructions. Like otherwise what are they gonna do when they come into work?
Laurel Martin: But it was very one way. I think that's my, my main point is it wasn't in dialogue and in collaboration with those people who'd been there longer than I had, so, Hmm.
Laurel Martin: Yeah, they probably had a, a perspective there that would've been really valuable.
Camille Rapacz: I think we've all been there on both sides, right? Whether we're the perpetrator of it, because we are brought up into leadership roles or if you're a small business owner who's never had a leadership role, any of the examples you mostly see are probably not great examples of how to be a leader.
Camille Rapacz: This word boss always kind of bothers me cause I'm to boss people around is where it leads to, right? It's like, ah, you need to be in charge. But that doesn't mean bossing people around. It doesn't mean doing what you just described, right.
Camille Rapacz: It also makes me think of another example that I think affected you. Has affected you, but I've seen repeated as well where people go wrong, which is giving too much agency or just saying, yep, go run with it, and not actually providing the support you need, right?
Camille Rapacz: So when you ran into risks or issues in the work that you're doing. So when you're, you know, a, a go-getter like you are and probably everybody listening to this podcast right now, you want that freedom.
Camille Rapacz: In fact, we start these businesses because we wanna lose freedom to do whatever we wanna do. Well, I don't wanna create this business the way I wanna do it. I wanna run it the way I wanna run it. I wanna teach, train, coach, deliver whatever it is we're doing. We wanna do it in a certain way and we want the freedom to do that.
Camille Rapacz: But in business, if you have employees and you are just giving them this, you know, okay, go off and do, but then you don't have their back. When it comes to removing roadblocks, supporting them with how to work through issues and problem solve and all of the stuff that they're gonna run up against as they do the work, you're really not being respectful because you might think like, well I just, it's up to them.
Camille Rapacz: And that's the most respectful thing I can give them. They can just do whatever they wanna do, but they need support. We all need support for what we're doing. So even as small business owners, we need have to go find that in more creative ways cuz we don't have a boss. So this is why people hire coaches like us.
Camille Rapacz: Like who can help me thought, partner this stuff and work this stuff out. But as you're looking to your employees, giving too much freedom can be disrespectful as well. It basically is showing like, I'm not really here to support you and care and help you work through problems, and that's definitely problematic.
Camille Rapacz: That's not what respect for people is really about.
Laurel Martin: Yeah. If I had a whiteboard right now, I would draw a line and it would be a continuum between free for all and command and control. And going back to, you know, the idea of this podcast, the belief shifts. It's not black and white. Like, you don't want to either, or this, we wanna find this nice balance in the middle where we're giving people enough of that, you know, high level direction that they're not just like, well I don't know.
Laurel Martin: What do I even do? What are we trying to accomplish here? Set them off and running, and then find that, that right way to support them as they start to take steps and, you know, do the work with a certain level of, of autonomy, but it's not just a Well, they better figure it out or else.
Laurel Martin: Right. So you, you talked about that idea of leaders as coaches and there is really this art too. Well, how, how much should I be involved without micromanaging them, but so that they do feel supported.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, a hundred percent.
Camille Rapacz: So let's talk about this respect for people and how it actually elevates business performance. Cuz I think this is a core essential thing that you're talking about, which is to get out of our own way and really think about how, which is partly what respect for people is about.
Camille Rapacz: Like, how do I just get out of my own way and also out of other people's way, and yet not just walk away right completely and just be like, good luck to you. But this idea that you're gonna have to check your ego, that you're gonna have to really think about how you can get the best for the business and for the people and how it elevates business performance.
Camille Rapacz: I think of this as definitely connecting with the idea of learning organization, but also as just if you're going to hire people into your business, whether it's an employee or just a contractor or anybody that you're gonna bring in and you're gonna respect the expertise you brought them in for, or the skillset or the knowledge or the attitude for that matter, any of the reasons that you brought them in.
Camille Rapacz: If you're gonna truly respect that, you are going to wanna capitalize on it for business performance reasons. Also for their personal reasons, like it's better for them too if they get to work to their highest potential. But this gets to the, when we talked about hiring. Why hiring is so critical to doing this stuff well.
Camille Rapacz: We talk about the idea that you're gonna hire more for potential than you are for just actual technical skillsets that are on the resume. And it kind of connects to that idea, of respect for people is also looking at their potential.
Camille Rapacz: But I would love to tie this more closely to, cuz right now, I mean this probably all sounds great. Of course we wanna do this, of course. We wanna be respectful for people. Yeah, I get that. I want to help people do better by, you know, giving them more challenging work, but yet not just walking away from them and letting them sink or swim. I need to support them in some way.
Camille Rapacz: Let's tie it back to like, this is how it literally improved business performance, like a, an actual K P I or an actual something.
Laurel Martin: The past several examples have just been like, well, cuz you didn't have a process owner, so what'd you expect? The team could come up with ways to improve the process, but there was no one to then create a space for them to implement the changes and like, say yes to them.
Camille Rapacz: Yes.
Laurel Martin: them to, to make it happen.
Camille Rapacz: Let's talk about this process ownership thing, cuz I think this is a way to connect the dots.
Camille Rapacz: So, when we think about processes in a business, we tend to think of them as just like things that exist in the business, but a human designed to that process.
Camille Rapacz: A human actually runs the process and therefore a human needs to actually own that process. So I maybe wrote out the steps. We also need to do a whole discussion on SOPs and standard work, writing it out. But they've written all these steps out or I know what they are, but somebody needs to own improving that or updating that.
Camille Rapacz: And if we just assume, and I see this a lot where like, well, yeah, I wrote it out, but now it's just sitting on the Google Drive somewhere and nobody's paying attention. In fact, I'm doing this right now with my podcast. My podcast producer wrote out the SOP for how to edit, like fully do the podcast.
Camille Rapacz: And now I'm trying to do all the steps to make sure that it works right? So how you actually do that is somebody has to own the process. So I consider myself the process owner for that process.
Camille Rapacz: Because it's mine, right? It's my business and I need to own and understand the process, even though I'm asking her to execute it. And we're kind of co-designing that, right? So she's saying we need to do X cuz she has more expertise in the actual editing part than I do. So we have to come together on it.
Camille Rapacz: But the idea that you need a process owner, that's an actual area for demonstrating respect for people by saying, yeah, you, you own that. You get to improve that, you get to make it the best process it can be. In fact, I need you to do that. The business needs you to do that in order for the business to run well.
Camille Rapacz: And yet it is something we fail to do over and over again in business, which is really say this process in the business is owned by this person. We think of roles like, yeah, the accountant should do all the accounting stuff. But we don't necessarily think about these specific process, especially processes that cross over to many people.
Camille Rapacz: Like my example, where it's both myself and my podcast producer doing this work. But only one of us can actually be the owner of that process, right? And if I didn't state that, there'd be all this ambiguity about, well, who should be updating the thing and who's where? Where do I and who decides whether we do these steps in this order or we need to do this other thing.
Camille Rapacz: There's no clarity there so the process is never gonna get improved. In fact, the process will probably always just be bad because we haven't made these decisions. Because has nobody owned those decisions. So I think that's a way where we have really bad processes in our businesses or things just run chaotically cuz we haven't even defined the processes.
Camille Rapacz: Small business owners, I'm looking at you just stuff is just happening in your business, but you haven't even defined what the processes are. Much less said who owns it.
Camille Rapacz: And who owns it doesn't mean they do all the steps. It just means they own that process. But we fail to do that, which is a failure of demonstrating respect for people by providing the clarity.
Camille Rapacz: And it definitely takes a hit on business performance. I think that's a clear connection. At least I hope it's a clear connection. Listeners, if it's not, you know what to do, leave me a voicemail cuz I wanna know.
Laurel Martin: Yeah. I think this connects back to the concept of systems thinking, where we can't expect all these disparate little pieces in a process to just know what each other is doing and synchronize and coordinate, and then magically also get better. At the same time. You kind of need someone overseeing the design of that whole process, that whole system.
Laurel Martin: Who can orchestrate that? Who can say, yes, we're collectively making this change together and here's how it's gonna work. Here's how it's gonna impact us upstream and downstream.
Laurel Martin: What I've seen on the, the disrespect for people side is, okay, someone held that kind of process, ownerish role, but we didn't really see what value that provided cuz they weren't like doing all day long.
Laurel Martin: So we let them go, we eliminated the role, and now the tasks are still done by the people who were doing them before, but it's like they're, you know, an octopus with it's head cut off or something. It's like, well now you just got a whole bunch of tentacles and they can't self-organize and also do their job a hundred percent of the time.
Laurel Martin: So as a leader, you know, how, how are you going to carve out enough space for those people to coordinate. There's no lack of ideas on how to improve stuff. Trust me. If you ask someone who like, does a task routinely, like, Hey, tell me some, some ways this is frustrating, or some things that you've thought about for how to make this better. It's more that issue of, well, we've, you know, we've overburdened them with doing the job and they don't have time to actually make that improvement.
Laurel Martin: Or they don't have the authority to work with their partners up and downstream in the process to realize those changes, even if everyone agrees that they're a good thing. That's what can hold companies back from realizing the, the potential of these improvement ideas.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah, this really takes me back to when we talked about lean and continuous improvement in that episode, few episodes back, and my whole hesitation with that is kind of founded in this, which is that companies, I think businesses in general, I don't. Value deeply enough, this concept of respect for people to execute it well, and without it, you can't do continuous improvement.
Camille Rapacz: And it's what's missing, right? They don't connect those dots. I see it clearly from the outside coming in. That example you just gave, we've seen that over and over again, right? Where you're like, oh, well, you just completely undermined the structure that was going to allow us to actually do the performance improvement work we wanted to do in this company because now everybody's too overburdened to actually improve process.
Camille Rapacz: And I understand why you did it, because you're trying to lean things out in the bad way. Right? Lean in the negative, which is I need to cut people, which is basically, I need to just cut dollars and people equal dollars, right? So I'm gonna cut these dollars out of the budget because business isn't going well.
Camille Rapacz: And it's what you and I have seen over and over again where businesses will make choices to eliminate things that cost money, which are the exact things that could solve the problems they're having, that are causing them to not have enough money.
Laurel Martin: Yes, and they prioritize that short-term tangible. Roi. I hate to even say it, that you can see like, Ooh, if I cut this cost that I see on my payroll great. That'll amp up my numbers. But what is that doing to your overall system of doing and improving the work?
Camille Rapacz: Right.
Laurel Martin: You don't see the impact of that for several months, maybe years, until you realize, oh, my process has totally deteriorated.
Laurel Martin: The people who are doing it are burned out and now we kind of have no way to get it back together.
Camille Rapacz: Right.
Camille Rapacz: Okay, so we just have a few minutes left. I really wanna focus on what small business owners should actually do. Any business, anybody who's listening and is either leading people or doing whatever it is you're doing in business, how do you actually put into action any of these ideas of respect for people in ways that are, I assure you, I know everybody listening is already very respectful to people.
Camille Rapacz: So this is not to say that, hey, people gets respectful cuz you've been slacking on the job. That's not what we're saying.
Camille Rapacz: What we're saying is there's another deeper level of this. So if you're already on board with, of course I want more respect for people, then these are the things you can do to, get into a deeper way of applying this that really will give your business and your people a boost, like in a really meaningful way. Do you have any good examples, Laura?
Laurel Martin: Yeah, sure.
Laurel Martin: Two things come to mind that are very concrete, and I think you could try these right away. The first one is, If you're working with another person, again, could be a vendor or could be an employee. Provide context first and express gratitude and impact later. So if you want someone to do something for you, take the time, have the respect to share why.
Laurel Martin: This kind of goes back to like, share a little bit of that backstory and that that context, it might even feel like you're oversharing, but that transparency will help them really understand how their work is gonna fit in and contribute and kind of be the thing that you want it to be for, whatever the gap is that you're trying to fill, maybe it's data you need or a deliverable that you need or a task you need done.
Laurel Martin: But you're going to imbue it with meaning and motivation and help get a better answer if that person knows a little bit more about the context.
Laurel Martin: And then once they do the task or give you the deliverable, the answer, whatever it is, say thank you, like omg the number of times that you just sent an email and it like goes into the ether and you're like, did they read it? Or I dunno, did I miss the mark? Yeah, we forget these little niceties.
Laurel Martin: But then even more meaningful I think is once you've done whatever you were going to do with the thing they've provided you. Follow up. So maybe it helped support a decision that you were going to make or maybe it came out in a client conversation that you were able to have. Tell the person. Tell the person who gave you that, that information or did that thing for you.
Laurel Martin: Like, Hey, here's how this helped me, or here's, here's how this helped the business, how it advanced our goals. Telling people that impact and recognizing their contribution. It just helps them piece this whole thing together and maybe wanna do it again and wanna, wanna keep getting better and better at their skills.
Laurel Martin: The second thing is pay attention to process. Even if you think you're, you're too small for this to matter, it's just you and a few other people. Some degree of, of standard work, as we call it is gonna respect you and the people you work with.
Laurel Martin: So don't make yourself figure out the same problem over and over again, or make the same mistakes twice. Just put some sort of simple standards in place. Maybe it's just a, here's a word document, here's a list of all the steps I took last time to file my taxes, whatever. It's so that you can have a chance of doing something as well as you did the last time and maybe a little bit more consistently and reliably over time.
Laurel Martin: And then that predictability, here's the benefit to you. You're like, oh, I don't know. That sounds kind of like it's gonna take a lot of time and like I just used all my time I had actually doing the process. I can't do more of that. Having that predictability in the routine areas of your work can really free up your energy and creativity for hard problem solving in other areas or for figuring out a whole new process that you really haven't done before.
Laurel Martin: So I would. Push you to just look for one thing that you're like, Ooh, that does seem like it's pretty routine. I could probably figure out a little process for myself for that. That'll just make it easier next time I have to do it.
Camille Rapacz: Love it. Love all of it.
Camille Rapacz: I was trying to think as you were talking, like what would I add to this in terms of what people should do right now? I think my big one, like the theme, I think that kind of recurs in this, discussion. When we talk about how to do this better, I think mine would be just don't assume anything.
Camille Rapacz: Don't assume you know what their level of overwhelm is. Don't assume you know what it means for them to feel burdened or unburdened. Don't assume what work they do or don't want to do. I have this conversation with a lot of business owners with about their teams. They're like, well, and I'm pretty sure so-and-so doesn't really want a blah blah blah.
Camille Rapacz: I'm like, do you have data to back that up? Nope, never ask them.
Camille Rapacz: Okay? You're making decisions based on a lot of assumptions about this person, and you really don't know. So just everything that you're gonna go do as you interact with people is just, we all need to stop making assumptions about people.
Camille Rapacz: I know why we do it, like we all do it because our brains are wired to like shortcut our way through life because our brains are supposed to make things easier for us, right?
Camille Rapacz: And so that's why we have biases. That's why we have like all of this stuff built up in our brains that often just works against us. It's trying to help us, and it does in many instances, but in this case, not so much. So don't make any assumptions. Try to just really seek to understand what respect for people actually means to your people.
Camille Rapacz: And then be ready to support that and know that when you do, it will pay off for them and for the business. I mean, we haven't even talked about the benefit of, oh, these more happier, more fulfilled people are probably gonna wanna stick around in my business longer. Like that's a huge benefit. Lower turnover.
Camille Rapacz: They're gonna be able to do more stuff in the business than you would've been able to have them do before because they've learned and growed and expanded their capabilities in the business. There's just so many reasons to do it. So if you're thinking, oh gosh, I don't know where to start. I just don't have time.
Camille Rapacz: You know what my favorite thing is? Micro moves.
Camille Rapacz: You gotta start with just like, what's the one small thing I can do that's different? And it might be just one task with one person, one area, just one little thing that you're gonna do different, and then you just expand on that bit by bit. Micro move after micro move, you just kind of keep growing this.
Camille Rapacz: Just take it one step at a time. But always have this in the forefront and remember that it does take intention. Don't just assume even for yourself that you know what? I'm good to people. I'm good here. I don't really need to work on this.
Camille Rapacz: I have not met one human.
Camille Rapacz: In fact, I wish George was here right now, because I guarantee you he would be like, oh, I have work to do, and he's probably one of the best at this that I know in terms of how to demonstrate respect for people.
Camille Rapacz: We all have room to improve on this, and it just takes a conscious effort, but it's worth it. Totally worth it.
Laurel Martin: We probably need a whole other podcast about this notion of, if we think about respect as profound appreciation of the individual and if we really believe in individuals they will do amazing things. Like it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Laurel Martin: It's one of these rare positive reinforcing loops where if I believe in you and your ability to do something and I act in that way, you're probably gonna push yourself to be better and try harder and excel. Elevate your own performance, and then I'm gonna believe in you more and I'm gonna support you more, and it's gonna just be mutually beneficial.
Camille Rapacz: Yep. I have seen it happen time and time again in all my experience leading people. It's very true. When you really genuinely believe in somebody's potential and you take the actions to support that potential, it shows up. It definitely shows up. Yeah.
Camille Rapacz: Oh my gosh, I can't believe how fast time goes when I'm talking to you, Laurel.
Camille Rapacz: So we're gonna have to have you come back, cuz we didn't even talk about how this connects to learning organization and all these other things. And we can deep dive on process and standards and Oh, so many things. So we'll definitely have some more conversations.
Camille Rapacz: But for now, I'm curious, Laurel, how can people, if they wanna learn more about what you are doing and how you are helping businesses and all of your focus, how should people connect with you and find you?
Laurel Martin: Well, I'd love to have a conversation with you. You can shoot me an email at Laurel, l a u r e [email protected]. That's just spelled like you'd think it would be spelled, but we can pop that into the show notes too. There might even be a website by the time we publish this growingwildconsulting.com.
Laurel Martin: But you know, I don't wanna overpromise, but I would love to talk through, if you're really struggling with like, well, I don't know, am I doing this right? Or like, what do you mean by becoming a coach? Like how would I do that? I'd love working with leaders on how to cultivate those capabilities. So shoot me an email.
Laurel Martin: Let's chat.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, we will definitely drop your email into the show notes. So definitely do that people. Of all the people I've worked with, you know, Laurel is top-notch and we hope to maybe collaborate on stuff in the future because it's much more fun when it's two people.
Camille Rapacz: So much
Laurel Martin: much more fun. Otherwise, I'd just be talking to myself right now.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. Yeah. This is why I don't do the podcast by myself, cuz it's kind of boring to just talk to myself.
Camille Rapacz: Alright, so thank you everybody for listening in on this lovely episode on respect for people.
Camille Rapacz: Remember, it's not just a nice thing to do. It is essential to elevating the performance of your business. And that's what we're all about, right? Elevate the performance, but also have a more joyful business for heaven's sake. So think bigger when you adopt this principle into your business and good things will happen.
Camille Rapacz: If you would like to share your stories of respect for people gone wrong or maybe gone well either way.
Camille Rapacz: Or if you have questions, you're like, I don't know what the heck you two just talked about. It sounds kind of good, but I really don't know what to do. Like, leave us a voice message. We'd be happy to address it. You can leave us a message at thebeliefshift.com. There's a little widget where you can say voicemail.
Camille Rapacz: But also if you're loving the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so more people will find us. Or just share us with other fellow business leaders that you know. We would love that too.
Camille Rapacz: All right, thank you everybody for tuning in and we'll be back in your ears next week.
Camille Rapacz: How Respect For People Raises Business PerformanceIn this engaging discussion, Camille is joined by esteemed guest Laurel Martin, a renowned business coach, as they unravel the transformative potential of investing in your team.
