Why can't they just get it — is it them or is it me?

Do you feel like your team still does not fully understand the vision, even after you have explained it?

In this episode, John explores why communication is one of the biggest challenges for business owners and why real alignment comes from clarity, consistency, and repeating the vision often. He also looks at what can get in the way, including ego, people-pleasing, and waiting until everything feels perfect before you lead the conversation.

Interested in joining our next Grounded Man Hike? Click here for more: https://www.derunation.com/TGM-Hike

00:01:00 — Why Communication Matters

00:03:05 — Clarity, Conciseness, and Consistency

00:04:05 — Why They Still Do Not Get It

00:06:05 — Bringing Vision Into the Conversation

00:09:40 — The Cost of Misalignment

00:11:05 — Seeing Yourself as the Visionary

00:14:00 — Sharing the Vision Means Sharing Yourself

00:15:35 — Letting Go of People-Pleasing

00:18:10 — The Leadership Alignment Workshop

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

They avoid meetings with their teams because they're not sure of their of the vision themselves. They're not sure of the strategy of how they're going to get there. So if I put an idea out to my team, will they will they even get what I'm talking about? Will they think I'm crazy? Will they and will they start asking me questions that I don't know the answer to? And that's real. That's your ego protecting itself. And so you need to let go of your ego. Welcome to the Grounded Man podcast by Deru. I am your host, John Douglas, and founder of Deru. And this space is for hardworking men building businesses, carrying responsibility, and providing for their families who feel they should be freer. You see, the world has changed, and leading through hard work and long hours now limits a man's influence. The new way is mastering the inner game of leadership so you can carry it well, enjoy what you're building, and still feel free. This week I have a fantastic episode ahead of you today because uh I'm gonna delve into leadership, communication, getting other people aligned with the vision, um, getting other people to take ownership. I know it's a big problem, big challenge in many businesses is actually leading other people and getting them, influencing them without force to do what you like for the purposes of growing the business and growing themselves. George Bernard Shaw said that the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it's happened. Because a lot of us think that we communicate well. We think we know what we want, we think we've communicated it pretty well, and uh we've often had to say things 10 times over to the same person about the same issue, and they still don't seem to get it yet. And then we we question ourselves, am I saying it the right way? Is it landing the right way? What am I not saying? Am I doing it right? So we start to question ourselves about it, and that actually knocks our confidence. So we actually hold back from maybe talking more about the things we want because we're not sure if we're actually even good communicators. And you're a human being. I'm here to remind you, you are a good communicator. But I'm here to also, I suppose, make your bring your awareness to the fact that what is communication? And communication is a two-way process. It's not just you telling something or you transmitting something, it's also you understanding. And actually, first of all, it's you understanding because unless you understand yourself and where you're going, it's very hard to then articulate that to somebody else so that they can see it too. And that articulation is not going to happen in one event. You know, the I hear this time and time again. Oh, we we did a town hall before the Christmas party, or we do two town halls every year and we go through the vision or we go through the values or the mission or something like that. Yeah, but like that's like saying I'm gonna go to the gym twice a year and I'm gonna have a six-pack, or it's like saying I'm gonna post twice a year on LinkedIn and I'm gonna create a massive following. It doesn't make any sense. No social media expert or no health expert would say that, yeah, that's all you need to do to hit your goals. So communication is the same way, it's a lot of it's about the reps and the consistency. So think of the three C's in communication. You can think of clarity. How clear am I on this? Is there a clear vision, a clear image, a clear picture? Is it concise? You know, is it very complex and hard to understand, or is it just simple? Very simple. You know, it can be said in three or four words, or maybe five or six. But in a very short space of time, it can you can you can say what it is you want. That shows that you know what you want. Because simplicity is mastery. So the simpler you can make it, the more you've mastered the clarity. And the last piece is consistency. So clarity, conciseness, and consistency. How consistent are you with the message? Because what's the actual problem if we're if we're not? So the problem is we have to say the same thing over and over again, 20 times to the same person about the same situation, and you say to yourself, why can't they just get it? How come they just don't seem to get what I'm talking about? We've been through this before. Do they even care? That's the train of thought that starts to come. And then you have to ask, is it them or is it me? Or is it just the skill set of actually being able to communicate and understanding what the communication is? And a lot of that is not asking yourself, did I tell them or how did I tell them? It's like, how do I know they understood? How do I know that they understood? And that's a completely different question because now you don't actually know if they understood it until you ask them, do they understand? Until you listen to them to see that they do understand, that you ask questions and their feedback, their response will tell you if they've got it or not. And that might not happen the first time, it might not happen the second time, but I can guarantee it will happen if you're consistent. And I can also guarantee that if you don't do it and you avoid the conversation, if you avoid the communication, well then nobody's going to be able to see it. And that's the problem again, because you end up in a gap opens up where everyone's pulling in the in different directions. You see, when you are communicating well, think of like social media. Any social media expert will tell you that you that consistency and your messaging is the most important thing. So consistency of the message is the most important thing. So the more you post about the same thing, the more people you attract in, and the more of a following you grow and the more of an authority you become. And that's what we want as leaders is to have that authority. So we need to be posting the same message consistently over and over again. But if you think about most of your communications in the in the business, what are they? If you had to be truthful now, what are the interactions you mainly have with your team? Are they about vision? Are they about mission? Or maybe a better question is how often are they about vision? How often does vision, mission, values, that that kind of the roots of what it's all about? How often does that come up in conversation versus how much of it is about the day-to-day problems, the firefighting, the fixing, the reacting, keeping clients happy? You know, maybe maybe we have a weekly planning session, maybe we even have a monthly planning session. But thinking about the vision for the next five years, how often is that spoken about? And the chances are it's not spoken about. So you might have an image in your mind of what you want, and maybe it's not, you know, a good good way to check is how clear is my vision for my business? On a scale of one to ten. Be honest with yourself. Is it up at a nine or ten? Is it more like a six or a seven? Because wherever it is, your team cannot be any more clear than you can be. You're the you're the bottleneck here on this vision, and you're the only one that has this vision. And this is like you've built up a team. So these people have followed you for a reason. Some of it might just have been a job, but there's more than that. You know there's more than that. There's a deeper connection there. And when you're consistent with the messaging, you not only build trust. Like, why do you build up a following of people on social media when you do that? You build a following, you build fans, you build uh customers, clients, leads, whatever you want to call it. You attract these people in. These people trust you, they trust you because they trust what you're about. They know why you're here. They know that you're here for more than just you know the money and the targets and the deadlines and the delivery, that you're here for something deeper, something more important, some deeper purpose, and they want to be part of that. But they can't be part of it unless they know it, unless they're aware of it. And so the consistency not only builds trust, but it also builds connection. And so when you have trust, the people can take action. When you have the connection, the people can take direction. If you take nothing else away from this podcast, that that consistency of the communication is so key because it builds trust to take action and connection for direction. Because when people really get what the business is about, you actually don't have to tell them what to do. They know what it is. You all know that if you don't have somebody in your team like that right now, hopefully you have a few of them. But if you don't, you probably work with somebody like that in the past who you did have. And so you you you kind of have to think about what kind of culture am I developing here? Do I want a culture of people around me who actually do see, who actually do get it, or do I want a culture around me of people who are pulling in different directions? And especially in senior management teams, if they're pulling in different directions, you become the mediator. It's almost like you're the messenger, you're the go-between between these guys because they can't talk to one another, they can't get on one another, and you end up jumping back in to try and fix their problems that they don't actually, they shouldn't need you there to actually even get involved, but you end up getting dragged back into it anyway. And so you want to be free from that. You want a team who are actually coming to you with solutions. They said, you know what? I've I was looking at this thing, I was I was researching this thing. I think this would be a really good avenue for us to explore. I think this would be a really good thing to invest in. Do you know that uh problem that we were talking about last month? I've actually got a fix for it and I've already done it. That's the type of team you want around you, and it all starts with you being able to communicate their direction. And again, it won't happen overnight, it happens with consistency of communication. Now we have to start to think about well, why is this so important? Well, if you don't do this, if you don't have the team pulling in one direction, first of all, you're frustrated day to day. You're frustrated by having to say the same thing to the same people, wondering why don't they get it, why don't they care. So that has a personal effect on your energy, and you probably bring that home with you. So you're not present in work or at home, you're you're carrying that around with you. Then it's going to cost the business because if people are put pulling in the different directions, you know yourself, it takes energy to grow a business. And if everyone is pulling in a different direction, they counterbalance themselves and the business goes nowhere, it goes, it becomes stagnant. And so everyone needs to be aligned. Think of a piece of steel like a magnet. All the in a magnet, the difference between a piece of steel and a magnet is that there's the same atoms in both, but they're all facing in the one direction in a magnet, which is why they attract a force, there's a force there and it attracts good to it. And that's what you want your team to be like. If they're sh if they're all pointing in different directions and not aligned, then the energy is being wasted. So it's not efficient. So forget about efficiency in the actual workflows and processes. Think about the efficiency in the people, that energy, it's being lost. And so over time, the team, the team performance drops, the business performance drops, the financial performance drops, and it's gone, it's only going one way. So, what do you need to do to be a better communicator? And this is the key thing here. You need to get everyone aligned, you need to get everyone that's from misalignment to alignment. Okay. And the way you do that is you need to see yourself differently. Because maybe right now you've seen yourself as the manager, you've seen yourself as the fixer. Maybe you haven't named that, but you know, you're the one that fixes all the problems. You see yourself as the grinder, the one that keeps jumping back in and gets everything done. And because you see yourself as that person, because you're like that magnet, you that's what you keep attracting to you. You need to see yourself as the visionary. Now that's a big word. We think of like people like Steve Jobs or Martin Luther King or someone of that stature when we think of visionaries, people who really stood for something. But you're also standing for something. It's the reason why you built a business in the first place. And maybe it's been lost a little bit along the way, or maybe not so much lost, but forgotten. Okay? Forgotten. And so, why is it that you started this business? What is the vision behind what you're building? What is it? And maybe it's just to have a really good culture, have a place where people can come to work and provide employment and bring people in and get them to work together well and get them to connect and get them to be part of something meaningful. Maybe that's what it's about. Maybe it's about achieving certain goals or targets, growing the business to its full potential, uh, exploiting or taking advantage of the opportunities that are there right now. Maybe that's what it's about. What is the vision? What is it? Why did it all start? So you need to see yourself as the visionary. You are the visionary. I'm reminding you now, you are the visionary. People are following you for a reason. You are the leader, you are the visionary. So the next part is why don't you show up that way? And maybe it's just because you never thought of it that way. You just didn't have the self-awareness, actually thinking, yes, this makes sense. I need to be the one communicating. Because if I'm not communicating it, who else is going to do it? You know, everyone, a lot of other people can be employed to do the stuff on the front line or even manage the thing. But who's actually going to lead it? Who's going to be the visionary behind this? Who's going to be the one communicating where we're all heading and keeping us on that path? So, in in meetings, bringing it up first at the start of the meeting, this is where we're headed. And remember, just anchoring people back to the vision and the mission and the values, anchoring them back. I want-to-one meetings where you're talking, you're like, this is where we're going to go in the next few years. This is where I see your role developing. How do you feel about that? Where do you think you'd be best placed in this? Getting their feedback, getting them to see, to uh feel seen and heard and important, and getting them to kind of take ownership for the vision as well. Because the worst thing is that, you know, they say, Well, I need to do this work for John, or I need to do this work for Tom. They almost think that they're working for you. You need to see that they're, you need to get them to think about they're working for this vision that we're working towards. We're all working towards it. So it's not for me, it's for us. We're doing this together. We're the ones coming up with solutions, we're making it happen. And so there's a couple of things that maybe could stop you being that man. And there's a bit of imposter syndrome here. It's like, am I the visionary? You know, you're comparing yourself to Steve Jobs, am I Steve Jobs or something like that? You don't have to be. You're your own visionary in your own right. But to share your vision, you have to share part of yourself. And that's being vulnerable. You have to put yourself open to that. And maybe you're not ready for that right now. And that's okay. But you need to at least need to be on your radar to say, look, I need to start sharing the vision more. And that's in sharing the vision, I'm sharing my ideas, I'm sharing what I think we should go. Maybe that's going to upset some people. Maybe some people, maybe I'm afraid of, you know, some people are going to feel they're going to be left be going to be left behind. Maybe some people who've been loyal to the business, they might be the top performers, but they're being loyal and I care about them. Maybe they're going to get left behind in this. But you have to remember the team that's got you to, you know, it's built the business to 1 million or 5 million is not going to be the team that gets it maybe to 10 million or 20 million. Because think of this, you know, the Premier League. The Premier League is the top soccer division in the UK, in England. But there's also the championship, division one, two, three, and so on. And maybe your business, the way you see it right now, it's it's in division two. And then we have to get to division one and then get to the championship and then get to the Premier League. That's the vision for all those teams. But are the same players going to get that team to the top? Probably not. And so we have to be okay with not keeping everybody happy and maybe having to let people down, quote unquote. Because if we don't, we're going to limit our own growth. And if we limit the growth just to keep other people comfortable, is that really the type of culture we want? So we need to uh let go of any of the fears that people might get upset and unhappy because we cannot control people's happiness anyway. Because what you find that will happen is that when you settle and you know go away from your vision and settle for not wanting to upset others and try to please other people, what happens is you end up with a toxic environment anyway, and people want to leave. And so the only thing, the only difference is they leave on their terms, not in your terms. And whose business is it? Be assertive on this, be unapologetic on this, because this is the vision that we're working towards. It's not for you, it's not for them, it's for all of us. It's not a you versus them thing. And so you need to give yourself uh, I suppose, permission to be the visionary. And to give yourself permission to be the visionary, you have to let go of the old identity of being the people pleaser. You have to let go of your own ego because the ego is might be making excuses. Because I've talked time and time again to people who they avoid meetings with their teams because they're not sure of their of the vision themselves. They're not sure of the strategy of how they're going to get there. So if I put an idea out to my team, will they will they even get what I'm talking about? Will they think I'm crazy? Will they answer will they start asking me questions that I don't know the answer to? And that's real. That's your ego protecting itself. And so you need to let go of your ego, that old identity. It's gonna keep you back. It's gonna keep making excuses. It'll say things like, oh, well, we're too busy right now, we're working on this project, this is a busy time of year for us, it'll I'll do it next month. You're using all these excuses, and actually you need to just start. Because it's like saying I'm gonna start building a brand on social media, I'll do it next month, I'll put it off, that's when we'll that's when we'll go ahead with it. When actually it's the consistency of the communication that's most important, which means the earlier I start, the better the results are going to get. And so, in in like letting go, there's always a betrayal of our old old identities, you know, and that old identity might be the one that people please and keeps people happy. I need to let go of that. I need to give myself permission to be the visionary, to be the one that's bringing people along on the journey, to be the one that's unapologetic when I make a decision on strategy or where we're going or what we're doing, the person that's able to unite people, bring them together, to strengthen the teams, to listen to the people so that they actually take ownership of it as well and don't feel it's just about coming from me. So give yourself that permission to dream big, to be ambitious, to prioritize growth over feelings, to prioritize vision over opinions. Give yourself that permission. Give yourself the permission to bring it into your week. And here's a really good practical tip to bring alignment into your week. I call it law, LAW. It's the leadership alignment workshop. And I don't call it a meeting because meetings usually end up talking about problems and firefighting. This is a workshop because it's about alignment. It's an alignment workshop. It's to get people aligned on the vision, on the strategy, on the roles and responsibilities, on the processes, getting alignment through the whole organization, through the people, through the movement of things, time, money, all that, getting it all aligned and on the one page. Because if you want to take a step back from the business and let your team take the helm and run with it more and giving you more freedom, then they actually need to know where we're going and they need to be certain and clear and all singing off the one hymn sheet. Because if they're not, then you know, if you have three or four in your senior management team, then you know, one or two of them are going to be saying X, Y, and Z, and the other two are going to be saying A, B, and C. And then the people working below them are just going to be confused. And if people are confused, guess what they'll do? Nothing. If people are like, what do you do when you're confused? Do you are you certain and confident and take action? No, you don't know what to do. You're unclear. So don't let that happen. Ensure that your immediates below you, the senior management team, make sure that they're bloody clear on that vision and use that leadership alignment workshop. Bring it in, even if you bring it in as a monthly workshop for the start, bring it in. Start thinking about it's just vision. Now, there's a challenge in that, and that is to how do I hold on to talking about vision when all these guys are going to want to come in maybe and talk about problems and firefighting and the day-to-day stuff. That's your role. You have to see your put on your visionary hat and say, no, guys, this is what we're talking about today. We're going to leave the problems out the door. We get enough time to talk about problems on a week to week. This is our space to talk about direction. And when we talk about direction, we're all connected. We're all trusting each other. We're all united as a team. And then the growth of the business will stem from that, out of that. And that's the impact. So the impact of this is you're going to build a strong senior management team who know exactly what's in your mind and where you want to go. And they're going to be able to communicate that to the next level down and the next level down until everyone is clear on why we're why we exist, where we're going, and how we're going to get there. So I'll leave you with that today. Thinking of George Bernard Shaw and his quote that the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it's happened. Don't leave it to chance. Don't leave it to luck. Bring it into your week. And it takes courage. It's going to take courage. But ask me, am I willing to be courageous? Am I willing to be vulnerable? Am I willing to share my vision with my team, even if I get it wrong first time? Even if I don't communicate it exactly the way I want it to be. It doesn't have to be perfect. Give yourself permission to be imperfect, to actually fail at communicating it in the first few months. Give yourself that permission. Because only by doing that can you actually get clear on it and articulate it, start to articulate it well and consistently and getting everyone else talking about it too. And then with that trust, they'll take action and with the connection, they'll know the direction. Take care. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. The wisdom here doesn't come from me, it actually comes through me, from the men like you that I walk alongside. And if the conversation today landed and you would rather live it rather than just listen to it, I want to invite you to the grounded man hike. It's a day in nature with a small group of founders and leaders, men who carry a lot and want to carry it lighter. And there's no slides, pitch your agenda, just honest conversation and open ground. The link is in the description below. Leave your details and I'll be back to you personally. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week.