Why CEO's Should Train Up Their Management Team

Kris Plachy: Hey, hey, welcome. I'm gonna do kind of a new topic today. I'm super excited. So let's talk on this podcast about why your managers need management training. Here we go.

Hey, so welcome. Oh, it's the holidays. We're getting there, right? So a couple things. First of all, this podcast is brought to you by the CEO Boutique. Which is the only digital boutique for women who ceo. So if you are interested in getting a little snack sized digital support on key areas that you need to improve as the woman who leads her business, I encourage you to go to the CEO Boutique. So just go to krisplachy.com and click on CEO Boutique and see what's there and what I have in store for you. I'd love for you to check it.

Secondly, let's talk about managers. So Michelle and I, my amazing COO, we were, a couple, about a month ago, we led a CEO immersion. And CEO immersion was an in-person experience with CEOs and their operations folks. And they came here to my town and we spent three days together and we went through our entire suite process knowledge base, which is super cool. And the intention of this experience together was to really make sure that the CEO and the COO, or the director, ops manager, got together, had this dedicated time and space to go through all of the team operations that they had in place and tweak them, change them, write them, all the things.

But what ended up happening also is a lot of talk about management and leadership and things people need to know, and challenges that these ops managers are facing in addition to the CEOs when it comes to managing. There were operations managers there who really haven't ever in their whole entire lives, had management training. They've had operations training, business management training, you know how to be an operator, training, how to be an integrator training, OBM training. You think about all these things, right? All of those types of trainings are useful, but they don't teach people how to lead and how to manage and how to make decisions about being managers while they're managers. What to do in challenging situations with people.

So as I was talking about topics, we had such robust conversations. We came back - so I just had a debrief call with the CEOs and one of the women who was there just said, "I cannot believe the change in one of my operations managers. It, it's like night and day." She even got a little weepy. She's just so blown away at what, just three days of an investment did for this. She came back, she fired someone. She's hiring people. She's taking so much more ownership for her role. So, you know, Michelle and I, of course are like, "Duh" to ourselves. Like how is it that we've been doing this for as long as we've been doing it? And this isn't something we've been really talking about.

We've had people, our clients, our founder, CEO clients, ask us for help managing or teaching their ops people management skill. And Michelle has actually been a coach for quite a few of them and we've certainly helped when people have offered, but we've never really put it together. So, now we're going to, and I'll talk more about that as we get towards the end of this podcast.

But what I wanted to talk about right now is how I really wanna invite you to think, because here's what I've really, really come to the conclusion about. If you are running your company and you have an established company, I wanna talk really to those of you who have a multiple million dollar generating business, and you have several people working for you. Let's call it 15 or more. And you have managers, and if you don't, you should, because you cannot have 15 direct reports. Stop it immediately. Okay?

But you may need help learning how to lead and manage. And that's why you seek out what we do in our CEO advisory program, right? This is good news, and you need to do that because as the founder, CEO of your company, you're always gonna manage someone. No question. But if we don't treat the management of your company, like an ecosystem, we're failing you because it doesn't do any good for you to have all this great leadership and management insight and practices and tools if you then don't have a right hand who can do the same.

Because the goal of course, as as the ceo, if you're my client, is to get to the point where you're really not necessary in the business. You have a very specific function, but you're no longer kitchen sink job. You're not doing it all. You're doing your thing, whatever that thing is. So that's what I want you to think about is when you think about leading your team. There's what you need to learn, but then there's the entire ecosystem. And if you don't have managers, who work for you, who have considerable and good, they're effective, management skill, that is a handicap.

And so I've been really fortunate because in especially in my own business here, having Michelle as my COO, Michelle has a lot of management experience. She knows how to manage people in our business. So it's almost a little bit like, "I should have had a v8," right? Like, duh. Because it hasn't been a pain point for me, and so it hasn't been as much on my radar, but watching this happen in front of me and then watching these operations managers just absolutely drink up the content, the tools, the ideas, the notions that we were sharing with them, like the brains were like blown. They were like, "What? You could say that? You could do that? What do you do about this?"

And so it reminded me of when I used to work, do a lot of my corporate training. My corporate training used to be focused on managers and directors and VPs within companies, and I had that same reaction then because so many people who manage people have no training.

And that's really true in entrepreneurial environments. We have to teach people how to manage, and you have to decide this is your role as the leader is, are you willing to invest in the development of your managers? What I like about the continuity of what we do, and this is what I, when I used to run a coaching team in a company, is we taught leaders a common leadership and management language. So I taught a common leadership and management language. So that then all the way through the organization, we were using the same practices for performance, for hiring, for firing, for accountability, for delegating, for boundaries, all the pieces and parts right that we talk about. So, I want this to be something that's on your radar.

Because if you're running a multimillion dollar business and you are the CEO and you are still in the weeds, and I know you know exactly what I'm talking about, even though you have a manager who reports to you, I want you to be honest. Do they know how to manage? Can you delegate the management of others with confidence to them? Because until you can answer that question with a hell yes. You have a problem and you will have to stay too close to the day to day if you don't have a manager that you trust.

So what's the solution? The solution is management training. The solution is management coaching. Just plop it in your Google and you will find, of course, that this is the part where I might sound a little arrogant, but it's okay. Go with me. If you're a listener, I mean, I've been saying what I'm saying to you since 1999, that all managers need coaches, all managers need development. And if we really wanna change the trajectory of a business, we have to start at the leadership level from the frontline all the way to the top line, and it has to be the same. So you can't have your executive leadership going off to one kind of training, and then you have your frontline supervisors just doing this training. We have to give people the whole philosophy that we believe in as a leadership, or leadership team.

So we have had a lot of businesses hire us. We have a product that we used to only do before I started working exclusively with entrepreneurs. We have a program called The Manager Formula, and it's a 12 module management training. We've had a lot of companies over the years buy the whole training. Because it's videos and it's, it's workbooks and it's coaches guides. So someone internal can actually help people do the work. They can have discussion questions, all the things that go with it. So the irony is that we, the platform it's on is Kajabi, which if you're not familiar, that's an online course platform. Kajabi bought our program for their managers. I love that story. That's my favorite.

So we've been doing a lot of thinking about next year and what we want for next year and what we wanna do to help you next year. And one of the things that we know for sure is we want to develop your right hand person. We want to feed and support your management team. For a lot of you it's the right hand, probably a couple of others. So as we've thought about that, we've decided that what we're gonna do is we are offering How to CEO again in February. February 16th it begins. And we are going to include the manager formula, live coaching and training for a certain amount of weeks. And we haven't figured these details out yet, but it's coming and you'll wanna follow along at the How to CEO sales page, which is krisplachy.com/ceo cuz we're gonna post a little bit about this and it'll be live management training that will be included when you do How to CEO with us and it'll be for your managers.

And if you're a current client and you're in the How to CEO lab or in How to CEO right now, we will also be making this available to you. So there'll be a whole thing that we're gonna announce, but we're working out the details. But I'm super excited because my goal is that you get results. I would love it if you work with us to get those results, but I know that when you develop who you are as a leader, your business expands.

It's not an easy road. There are moments that are rocky. It takes a lot longer, I think, than most people wish it would, but you get there, but you'll get there faster if your management team is with you. And so I'm really enthusiastic about what this will mean for your results. So if you've waited to do how to CEO and now you're like, "Okay, no, okay, fine, that sounds good," this is gonna be our pilot. So it's gonna be an incredible offer. It's not something you're gonna wanna miss, but you've gotta make sure you stay and you pay attention. So I would get on the wait list. If you're not on it yet, go to krisplachy.com/ceo and get on the wait list so you learn about it when it comes.

I expect this is gonna be a pretty powerful and popular option. I wanna address one of the objections that I do here from small business owners is, "Well, if I make this investment in them, what if they don't stay?" And the truth is, we don't know what people will be doing ever, and they may not stay. Running a business, being an entrepreneur, you've already raised your hand love and said, "Yeah, I like risk. Yeah, risk. Yeah, it's what's for breakfast," right? Like, that's what you do is you take risks. So why do you want to prevent potential success? Because you're afraid someone will benefit from it and then not stay. Really think about that. First of all, the entire expense of management training is a write off, and second of all, you investing in someone like this actually makes it more likely that they will stay.

And I'll let you in on another secret. Once my team, in this case, Michelle has a chance to work with these managers, we also are able to know if they're gonna make it, if they have the skill and the mindset to thrive as a manager. Are they cut out for leadership? Are they showing a willingness to change, to adapt new behaviors, to try new things?

So I know for the clients that have had their managers work with us and my team, they have never regretted that it's helped them get people better. It's also helped them know I did everything I can to help this person and it just isn't working out, so I gotta let 'em go. It gives you the peace of mind to know, "Okay, this isn't gonna work out."

So whether you were to do training with us or not, I think we actually offer the best management development you're gonna find because it's content coupled with facilitation, coupled with coaching. It's all of it together, which you have to have all those elements. You can't just send people to classes. It's like saying, here, read a book, be a good manager. It doesn't work that way. You have to learn something and apply it and do it, and fail at it and bring it back and talk about it and work through your thoughts about it. It's a whole continuum.

But as a leader, I think the question to ask yourself is, am I interested in developing the people who work for me? Do I see a benefit in helping my managers align with me? And if you haven't done How to CEO, this is the time to do that so that you're learning, you're growing, you're expanding, and they come with you.

Because a lot of times what happens is you grow and you do all this great work and they don't come with you, and you get real frustrated. Once you know what you know, you can't unknow it, so let's help them know it cuz they get a lot of the same information, a lot of the same content tools, but from a manager's point of view, not from the founder's point of view.

And it's cool because Michelle has led and managed teams that have worked for founders for years, so she really understands the nuance of working in a founder-led business versus a big old corporation. So this has been sort of an ongoing plug for the manager formula for your managers. But this is also really important. I don't know if I'd say incredible, but I do think it's an incredibly important message for you to hear, which is, you can only go as far as the people who work for you are willing to go, right? And so it either means the people you have, you decide, "Okay, I'm gonna leverage who these people are and I'm gonna develop them."

Or as you grow, you get new ones and you hope they have the management training and experience that you want. The challenge is so few people have management training and development experience. They really don't have it. So your option is to learn it and then teach it yourself.

I was just talking to another client yesterday who, she has done that. She's actually done, she's been working with me for a while and she did my leadership coach training. She's a certified life coach. She's a CEO of a multiple, almost 20 million business, has 120 employees and she wants to develop her people, but she, she said, I just don't have a lot of time. She's trying. She doesn't have a lot of time.

I'm like, "No, you're not a trainer. There's people who are good. Let them be good at it. You have enough money, you can buy time. You can buy time from other people. You can buy products from other people. You can buy coaching from other people. You don't have to do it yourself." And when you do it, when you do something that you're doing and they're doing, and it's all in the same environment with the same language, you know that, that you're gonna speak the same.

It's not like the managers are gonna come running back and say, "Hey, have you heard about this quadrant, blah, blah, blah..." You know, like you send people to Blanchard or you send people to Covey, or you sent right. Dale Carnegie. It's all there. It's just all different. And it makes things confusing. So think about it. Just really think about, I wonder what it would be like if you had managers on your team who you really trusted, who were really, really competent.

Give it a think. And if you're thinking it, you should go to How to CEO to the How to CEO information page, krisplachy.com/ceo and add your name to the wait list and let's see what this whole little thing is that we're putting together. All right. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Hey, entrepreneur, you started that gorgeous business of yours to do some really good in the world. You probably didn't start your business to manage people. But here you are having to figure out how to manage people to get work done, and maybe it's not going so well.

So head on over to krisplachy.com/howtoceo, and let's talk about how we can help you learn how to lead, manage, hire, fire, and all the things so that you can build a team that expands on your amazing dream.