Effective Confrontation | Simon Sinek

Number one, I think middle management is the most difficult but also the most important job in the world. And here's the reason. Because when you're in the front lines, it's mostly finite. Make the sale, get the plane out on time, beginning, middle, end, right? But you have to have the concept of infinite because you have to know that it's contributing to something bigger. And you have to know that it's not just about the sale, it's how you do the sale, so that they'll come back again and tell their friends. But as you move your way up the ranks, when you get to senior, senior, senior, it's mostly infinite with a little bit of finite because you have to know that the decisions you make have ripples. Middle management sucks because you have to balance both, right? And you learn to become a translator. And I think the solution that often works best is empathy and honesty, right? So one of the things I would recommend is you're focusing on how do I help the people manage this influx of difficult. And they say we don't because he doesn't appreciate and he never gives us the chance and he never says yes and all of this stuff. For you now to turn your attention to him because as a good leader, you wanna help him grow. And you said he's open-minded-ish, right? So he's a good person and we can just assume that maybe he's never had the leadership training that he needs. He's not a bad guy, he just kept getting promoted, right? He's already tired of me. No, no, that's normal. If you're good at your job, you get promoted. But you get promoted to do the job you, to lead others who do the job you used to do. He's open to my advice and he often thanks me and I said, you rather thank Simon but he's not open to your vision. Well, that's okay. But make it your own, it doesn't have to be mine. He doesn't have to be mine. It doesn't matter whose name is on it, it's ridiculous. That's fine, make it your own. But the point is, is I would learn the technique of effective confrontation, right? Shit, this is gonna be more than one minute. It's a free step, right? I heard about it. I'm going long. No, no, no, I know what you mean. Yeah, okay. What this lousy thing, I need my mic back. Let's change. I use the effective confrontation on my husband all the time. He doesn't know it. Okay, that's manipulation, that's different. Simon, before we get into any chaos. I'll tell you really quick what effective confrontation is. Effective confrontation always requires three things. We came up with an acronym for it but I don't remember what the acronym is. But it requires three things, right? You have to be able to state how you feel. Oh, FBI, FBI. Feelings, behavior, impact, right? So you have to say specifically how you feel. You have to do better than happy, sad, angry, right? You have to say, and I'll tell you a little bit later. You have to say specifically the behavior that they did that caused the feeling. And you have to say the impact if that behavior continues. You cannot make it generic. It has to be specific. Those three things can be in any order but they all have to be there. We've gamed it out with one and two and it does not work. You have to have all three, the order doesn't matter. And it goes something like this. You cannot say, you're always late to meetings. You need to come to meetings on time otherwise bad things will happen, right? Because you're making it generic. Because they'll say, I was at the meeting on time on Thursday and you'd be like, yes, yes you were. But in general, and that's what ends up happening, it falls apart. So you have to write down the statement so you know it. You have to know it before, you have to be prepared for this confrontation. So you would say something like, when you showed up to the meeting late on Thursday, even though it's all the time, you pick one. When you show up to the meeting late on Thursday, I feel very disconnected from you. And my concern is that if you continue to show up late to meetings, that the disconnection will grow to the point where I'll stop trusting you. And then you shut up. So you would say to him, when you heard that idea, I'm, you can say, I'm completely confused. Or I'm completely stuck. Because on Thursday in the meeting, you said you wanted this. And when our people gave us this, you rejected it. And my fear is, if you continue to do that, they will stop caring. And then you shut up. And then when he says, yeah, but they don't understand, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, you repeat the statement. And he says, yeah, but you, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, you repeat the statement. And believe it or not, that statement works extremely well to make them start taking accountability. So it's about managing up.