Finding Time for People Development: Breaking Free from Firefighting Mode

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

That is what gets you stuck in the chaos cycle. So how can you fix this? That's what we're going to cover in today's episode of the HR impact show and Lauren Adams, head of leadership development at JLL, is joining us today to help unravel the mess that we're in. So let me give you a little bit of background on Lauren's story.

el as the head of leadership [: 00:01:00

She spearheads transformative leadership programs built upon JLL's core values and capabilities, fostering a culture of excellence. From tailored leadership programs to specific leadership levels to a range of interactive delivery methods, Lauren ensures that every individual's learning journey is engaging, meaningful, and promotes long term retention.

And that last part is my favorite part of that bio because I'm a huge retention nerd. Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren Adams: Thank so much for having me, Dr. Jim.

Dr. Jim: For those listeners who aren't aware of JLL they're known for having a pretty Top tier learning and development organization. So this is going to be a really interesting conversation to dig into.

e leave out that you feel is [: 00:02:00

Lauren Adams: a couple of elements that are important to mention are just my experience, even within JLL has been moving around quite a bit within the L& D space. So everything from working on small teams on an individual client account to where I am now with our centralized L& D and talent delivery teams.

I've got that kind of experience of from the line manager all the way through executive level of how we need to develop people and the different needs that those groups bring to the table. I think that helps us really speak to some of the topics we're going to address today.

Dr. Jim: You said that you've worked across JLL and even prior to JLL, you've had a lot of experience in this space and your exposure at all levels of the organization has informed some of the things that we're going to talk about. Tell us a little bit more about how that equipped you for success when it comes to building high performance teams.

comes, the deliverables that [: 00:03:00

Present information to them for them to take back to their teams. What they need as far as that coaching piece is going to be a little bit heavier than when you get into more senior levels of the organization as you're trying to help them develop their leadership voice in a lot of those cases, they really Thanks.

Want to bring their expertise to the table and be able to demonstrate that they already are leaders. And so giving them a little bit more space to peer coach each other to engage with the learning at a slightly different level. It really builds out the culture of learning slightly different, depending on the level that people are out within the organization and even the. The size of the organization you're working with it.

, but I want to zone in real [: 00:04:00

Lauren Adams: Some of the gap areas for the leaders at those levels around the areas of curiosity and transparency. We see a lot of times that leaders, new managers, new leaders really feel that they have to demonstrate that they are the expert. I have to prove that I'm worthy of being in this management position, that I know what I'm doing.

innovative. Option and idea [: 00:05:00

Now that I'm in charge, I have a lot of information. But I'm not passing that on to my team or not finding ways to clue them into things that may be coming. And as a result, it ends up actually providing proving to be a hindrance to the rest of the team, because we see, there are things you can't tell people, there are confidential things coming down from the top, but even something is.

Much as saying, we have some conversations taking place in the upper levels that may have an impact on this project we're doing. Let's pause for a little bit until we hear what those are going to be and refocus on something else. You're not telling them what's coming. You're not providing too much information, but you're giving enough transparency that people don't go in the wrong direction or become disengaged because they don't understand what's coming.

ling like they have to prove [: 00:06:00

What's your advice to those folks on how they could avoid falling into that trap? What are some of the practical things that they need to be doing to avoid that mistake?

a lot of it comes to creating some space for yourself to take a step back, to pause. In the process, as you're leading your people, as you're presenting work, a project, something that needs to be dealt with and really giving yourself an opportunity to ask, what would I have wanted if I was in their position?

well with your team members [: 00:07:00

It's not about having the answers. It's about. Building up the people around you so that they can help provide the right answer, that they can take us in the direction we need to go. And the only way you can do that is by getting to hear from them, getting to understand their skills, their strengths, and what they bring to the table.

Dr. Jim: Before we dive into the core part of the conversation that I'd like your input on is when we're looking at all of the conversations that we have. A lot of it is about leadership and HR. What's the one leadership or HR myth that you just wish would go away?

And why?

Lauren Adams: I think the biggest leadership myth that I would love to see done away with is that a leader can't let their people fail. We need to fail fast, fail forward. That's how we innovate. And we see a lot of times with leaders who are afraid to let their people take charge and run with an idea, or they have to correct every little step that people stop innovating.

[: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: I can appreciate that position and actually fail, fast, fail often and fail forward is one of my favorite sort of mantras. And I'm coming from. Sort of the small startup environment. So I get how that works from an innovation perspective and a learning perspective in that environment.

I'd be curious to get your perspective of how you apply that in a much larger organization like J. L.

tolerance for failure in an [: 00:09:00

Lauren Adams: I think the big examples maybe that come to mind for me are opportunities where if you've put someone in charge of a project presentation. Before you deliver it to the client, have them deliver it to your team, give them the opportunity to present what they did, their work, don't critique it first, give them the opportunity to present internally.

And then if there are issues, if there's challenges, if there's mistakes, we can go in and we can address and we can coach and we can fix those things so that what the client sees what's being done externally is the right. Content, it is approved. It is where it needs to be at the right level, but it still allows them to present their work.

sent to you the full concept [: 00:10:00

So again, ties into what I mentioned earlier on the curiosity and transparency. Let's not shut it down. Let's not tell them what has to be this. If we can make room to give them an opportunity to deliver it in a different way or to ask questions that will help them. Form the right answer on their own.

Dr. Jim: I like your point about, don't be eager to critique. And also try not to stop before the process has worked itself out. I think that's really well taken. I guess it goes back to the same question I had earlier. It sounds good in theory.

What are the practical things that you need to do that you can build the discipline to pause, give space and build space for your team to go ahead and execute so that they're actually using this as a learning experience.

people need from us. So find [: 00:11:00

There are going to always be times when you have to stop something early on. Nope. That's not the right direction. We've got to jump in, but as you begin to allow the freedom in smaller. areas and give those kind of practical application opportunities, you create a culture where people are more comfortable.

They know when to come for questions or when to say, Hey, I need your input on this rather than you having to jump in and provide it up front.

oing to find interesting and [: 00:12:00

Lauren Adams: Really managers leaders need to be having regular ongoing conversations with your employees. This should not be a. Every six months check in on their career, we should be having real quality level conversations about what are you doing now? Where do you see yourself? What do you want to develop?

What are your goals? So that I can help target and feed to you things that are going to speak to you in those areas and really giving the employee the opportunity to be heard. Rather than it just, here's what you get, because that's what's coming at us. When you have those regular conversations, you get to build that relationship so that when you have to tell them, yep, you're going to do this thing that I know you hate.

They know it's because that's what just has to be done. But they recognize that you are getting them the things that really feed their soul as well.

bout these sort of things as [: 00:13:00

And they're going to say do you have any idea what my day looks like? I'm like running around all the time, firefighting all the time. How do I find time? It's not feasible for me to carve out the time to do this. And that really gets at one of the main questions that we're trying to answer.

How do you actually create the space and time as a leader to work on these things? So that you're not in that firefighting mode constantly. Tell us a little bit about that and how that ties into some of the principles of building a high performance team.

ave these conversations on a [: 00:14:00

So creating a starting point for yourself of, okay, I'm going to block a certain portion of my day for my people management. That is a critical leadership element that a lot of early managers, mid level managers struggle with, because there's so many deliverables that we are responsible for, we fail to deliver for.

Our people and really focus on what they need from us. That's where we get that, question around retention. Cause you're not building into your people. They're not being heard. So as a leader, really blocking a time for yourself. That every day at this time, I am going to do something on my people management to, or to reach out to someone on my team, to do a coffee chat, to do some recognition, maybe whatever it is that really is going to help develop that skill for you.

. So you referenced the shop [: 00:15:00

So I've always been in sales or revenue operations for every organization that I've been in. And oftentimes when We as sales managers or sales leaders are told you need to have one on ones. One of the common mistakes is those one on ones end up being conversations about what did you do in the week, which, this meeting could have been an email is really the reaction that most people get to those sorts of conversations.

So when we're building structure around those people development conversations, what are the things that we need to have on the agenda? So it doesn't. Turn into a status report. It's an actual development conversation.

ing point, not be, so what's [: 00:16:00

So trying to keep it much more targeted to, let's start with individual questions. How are you? What's going on? Okay. What do you need from me? How can I support you? Where do you want to grow? Can I make any connections for you? And really having a set list I found of questions that you can go through until you build up a cadence and a rapport with your people.

And it helps you to be able to translate that across your team. We always have one or two people that we click with right away. And it's a super easy conversation. Everything flows and then others that maybe we just don't have quite as much rapport with, or as in common with, and having the same set of questions that you start from can help to build that.

nager, but we haven't really [: 00:17:00

So I want to take what you just talked about, building the personal relationship, being curious, and asking those questions to really get that relationship built. More often than not, if you're a manager in an organization, you didn't really build out the whole team. It might be a situation where the previous manager either got promoted, Or has been exited from the organization and you're the new person literally in that team and you're starting from ground zero.

So if you're starting from ground zero, what are some of the things that you've seen that really helped that new manager experienced or inexperienced build trust quickly across their team so that they can move to those higher value conversations that really get into that development mode.

really I found it is to ask, [: 00:18:00

What do you need? Where do we support each other? That it's not just coming in as I'm in charge now. Here's what's going to happen. So really building from a place of curiosity from the start,

Dr. Jim: The things that you're talking about when you're establishing a foundation of trust and building that relationship is really important. How do you pivot when all of a sudden the strategic objectives of an organization might change?

ll. And now you as a manager [: 00:19:00

What's your advice for managers who are looking to successfully navigate that pivot?

Lauren Adams: really focusing in on being as transparent as you can, when you can time over time, what you're able to share and how you share that will shift. Depending on the type of change and the type of impact that it's having, but even being able to just tell the team and be honest with them about how you're feeling about the change.

There's a lot coming that I'm not really sure of yet that I have a lot of questions around still, but we're going to navigate this together. We're going to have these new ways of working, but I want to hear from you as we get into it. So that you can tell me how this is working for you and where we might need to be creative in our solutions.

st what we have to do, gives [: 00:20:00

Dr. Jim: Really good stuff, Lauren. I think we've talked through. Some of the challenges associated with managers running thin and being constantly in firefighting mode. So I want to get a little bit more focused here and map out how do you solve this? If leaders in general and managers in particular. Want to be able to get out of that chaos circle. What's the framework? How do they back out so that they can create more space for themselves and be much more effective as people leaders

ly address in a firefighting [: 00:21:00

On opportunities for them to step up for them to support the objectives and where you're trying to go, you don't have to be the one coming up with every answer and delivering every direction for things to go. That's why you have a team working with you. So really bringing forward the questions to engage them along the way in that process,

Dr. Jim: I appreciate you sharing those couple principles. When you think about the conversation that we had, what are some of the key principles or key things that listeners need to take inventory of? And apply to their roles as leaders.

To be effective.

asking if I were in my team [: 00:22:00

Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff, Lauren. I appreciate you hanging out with us for those folks who want to continue the conversation. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Lauren Adams: Sure. I am available on LinkedIn at LP Adams at LinkedIn. So always happy to chat with people and connect.

Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us. I really liked the conversation that we had . You said a lot of things that I think are important. I think one of the key principles that I think every listener needs to take away from this conversation is that if you're.

happen if you're constantly [: 00:23:00

If you're asking the question how do I do that? There's a couple of principles that you mentioned that I think are really important to highlight one. Is start small. You need to create small opportunities for your people to be successful and experiment and give them the opportunity to learn through those small, safe opportunities. The other thing that leaders need to keep in mind is that you need to create the space and opportunity for success. And sometimes that means allowing your people to fail. So you need to resist the urge of jumping in and offering, offering critiques and suggestions too early.

o have been listening to the [: 00:24:00

Make sure you join the HR impact community. You can find that at www. engagerocket. co slash HR impact, and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader joining us to share with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.