← Follow The Yellow Brick Road
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- [00:00]
A
Your operator isn't coming back and saying no to you. That's probably not the person for you.
- [00:05]
B
We gotta think that the company is bigger than you as a founder. Face them and have the hard conversations like, I'm working for you. This is for your good, it's for your company.
- [00:13]
A
No one teaches you how to manage up.
- [00:16]
C
The only thing is it's about what do you think is the right path. How do you argue for that?
- [00:21]
B
You need to understand the owner. I need to have that step first, otherwise it wouldn't be productive.
- [00:26]
A
What happens if at the top, there's no accountability? Hi, welcome to another episode of Special Ops podcast where we give actionable insights to direct response marketers and e commerce sellers. Today is a very special episode. I am joined here in San Diego by Tiago and Richard. They're part of the Shockwave team. You've heard me talk about them a million times. If you're a listener. Today we're going to be talking about managing up. Every true operator needs to manage down, but they also need to manage up. And that can be a really hard thing for people. Saka is not here with us today.
- [01:11]
B
That was good.
- [01:12]
A
Tiago and Richard are here with us today to break down what I'm talking about and how to implement it in your business so that you can be managed by your operations people. And we'll get to that. We, we do have a special gift for you. Tiago wrote a fun little PDF on how to manage anyone, even in Moraineville. Managing up is an important part of operations and unfortunately it's not really a skill that many people teach. Our mentorship program for COOs definitely has that in it because you have to manage all of the people in the business and as the number two, very often it also means managing the visionary entrepreneur. That can be incredibly difficult because they're the person that pays you and decides whether or not you stay with the company. I'd love to start with you, Richard. You've been managing in operations for years and you've had the, I'll say distinct pleasure of managing some of the industries greatest gurus and entrepreneurs, managing their expectations, managing the expectations that they set for other people, managing projects. Tell me about a time where you had to manage up.
- [02:29]
C
So I think we've talked through with the workshops that we run for one of our clients. The start of this is always a back and forth process of figuring out what we're going to, when we're going to do a workshop, what we're going to be teaching in that workshop. And then the real management part of that comes in getting approvals for the content that we're rolling out for this climb. Because obviously before we start running any kind of advertising with their name, with their face prominently branded across everything, we need to get there, go ahead. Because we can't run something that's just completely off kilter for them or that's not quite in the manner that they want or expect. But the challenge there comes with finding time for them to actually sit down and review this.
- [03:10]
A
So the none of us review anything. We tell you it's approved and then you put it out there and we scream at you for doing it.
- [03:15]
C
Absolutely. So that's a fun little.
- [03:17]
A
Fun fact.
- [03:17]
C
Yeah, A fun little prank. So, yeah, I think the management there just comes in essentially figuring out how to get the go ahead in a appropriate time. Time frame. And I think for me, what I found over doing this and basically any other kind of thing that requires this upwards management, simplicity, directness to the pointness, I think that is always the way to go. We can't do these long laid out conversations of, hey, I would love to get your approval on X, Y and Z. It's really got to be a case of, here's the workshop, we need to get this out. Can we get approval on this? Not obviously, that's a little bit more blunt than I put it, but I think the straightforwardness is what really helps in those situations. When you're managing up, the person generally doesn't want to necessarily have that discussion. They want to have a potential path of action.
- [04:06]
A
Tell me what to do, tell me when you need it by and then remind me 10 times if I forget.
- [04:11]
C
Absolutely.
- [04:12]
A
Seems fair.
- [04:12]
C
I'd say it's creating the actual answer rather than worrying about getting approval before asking the question.
- [04:19]
A
Thiago, you've had to manage from employers that were losing their minds on employees for almost no reason. To me, having a meltdown over image that went on Facebook that shouldn't have gone there to just like a plethora of things. And so as an operator, a lot of times we're forced to have hard discussions with the people. I won't say they employ us because we're not employed, but for most operators, they're employed. So I'm going to use the word employed. They employ us. And then we have to tell them, like, you're not allowed to behave like this.
- [04:58]
B
Yes, definitely. So for me, first of all, I need to understand and be like empathetic to the, let's say, visionary entrepreneur, the founder, the Owner. I need to have that step first. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair at all and it wouldn't be productive. So I got to understand that and I hope I can share this with operators out there. You and I talked about this. It's lonely up there.
- [05:20]
A
Yes.
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B
It's busy.
- [05:22]
A
It's very lonely. Yes. And you've never been so lonely around so many people in your whole life as when you're high level operations.
- [05:30]
C
Yes.
- [05:31]
B
And it's crowded with worries. Worries, yes. Thinking about and worrying about if X things fails, then Tiago won't be able to pay for her daughter's college.
- [05:41]
A
Yeah.
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B
And she's.
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A
She's 11 months, I think a lot of owners. And we just talked to a client right before we flew out here. And when I was mentioning to her the worries I have, do you see the look on her face? Almost relieved that she wasn't the only one? Yeah.
- [05:54]
B
It's an emotional too.
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A
It's very emotional.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I'm responsible for labor. That labor has people attached to it. Those people have had babies under my watch and those kids are my responsibility. Would Tiago go on and be able to pay for Rose's college?
- [06:11]
B
It depends on me.
- [06:12]
A
Absolutely. But of course it's my responsibility and I think it has. But I also think that a lot of that has more to do with when you own a business. There's a lot of. You sell people on your vision and you take one third of their life for them to plug in your vision. And when you're doing that, if you make a mistake and all of a sudden they don't have a job, are you going to be just fine? Absolutely. Is Richard going to be just fine? Absolutely. But would it be hard? Would it suck? Would it would be an awful experience for you. I don't want to own that. So as an owner, like, we have those worries. And then on top of that, for us as operators, we worry about the Amex bill that doesn't belong to us, that hasn't been paid, or the taxes that are starting to pile up that there's no money to pay. We start to worry about things that a lot of times are beyond our control because the owner won't give us enough control. And we stay up at night concerned and worried about it. And oddly enough, most of them are sleeping the same way, but they'll never admit it. Yo, we interrupted this pod to tell you to like and subscribe. What are you doing? Why haven't you liked? Why haven't you subscribed? Just subscribe. What's the problem. In all seriousness, subscribe so that you get notifications every time we drop new content. Additionally, if you have not signed up for our visionary vault, what the hell? Www.specialopspodcast.com Go sign up. It's free. We never try and sell you and we're putting all kinds of stuff in there to help you with the operations of your business because we're passionate about it and we want to share operational excellence with our direct response. E commerce and online selling family. The empathy behind that, I think is a really good way. I think it's really beautiful.
- [08:01]
B
That's the start.
- [08:02]
A
Yeah.
- [08:02]
B
So the empathy. We also provide respect and to understand them better, how that brain works and how they feel about things.
- [08:10]
A
Right.
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B
Just when they're like burning your phone, your slack, your, your, your brain, your soul, that's where they come from.
- [08:17]
A
Praying in your soul they're coming from that. No, I, I feel that as you say that. I feel that we used to have a client that had a voxer. We deleted voxer from everything. And I don't believe that Richard and I could hear that from voxer. I don't think either of us could hear that and not instantly have the hair on our next stand up.
- [08:35]
B
So the main, the main like two sided part after that is it's our responsibility to hold them accountable.
- [08:41]
A
Yes.
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B
There's no one up. So the hierarchy stops.
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A
What happens if at the top there's no accountability?
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B
They burn the place to the ground.
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A
It all falls down.
- [08:55]
B
Yeah.
- [08:55]
A
Yeah. And so I'd like to chat about this for a moment because no one teaches you how to manage up. No one when they hire you. Except for me. I think I'm probably the only person that does this says, hey, by the way, my expectation of you as an operator in my business is you're going to need to not only manage me, but our clients as well. You need to hold them accountable, you need to create structure for them, but you need to do it in a way that allows them to be visionary entrepreneurs and creative. So talk to me about, like, how did you figure it out that that was what you were supposed to do? Because you do it. Operations before us.
- [09:33]
B
Yeah. There's a big human part and at the core, they want to build a business, a successful business with their vision. They have a vision. So they are getting on their way with a lot of the things of how they're doing things, how they're handling their stuff and things like that.
- [09:51]
A
Mm.
- [09:51]
B
To face them and to have the hard conversations to hold them Accountable is actually like, this is for your, like I'm working for you. This is for your good, it's for your company. If you think this is objectively not good for the company, we can have that conversation what I'm bringing up, but there's a rationale, so we have to fall back into logic. I understand what you prefer you feel, but we gotta think that the company is bigger than you as a founder. And if we put that first, then you must be accountable to the company. And I will proxy for the company's sake as the operator, just because the hierarchy has to end somewhere.
- [10:28]
A
I love it. One of the things that we do, number one, we train and teach this to our people and to the people we mentor. But the other thing that we do is when we're working with our clients or working within the many mastermind communities that we're involved with, we, we teach visionary entrepreneurs to encourage their operations team to manage up. It is vitally important to the business that the business owner be held accountable. This is why massive companies have boards. This is why ginormous corporations have entire boards that the CEO needs to answer to. And so it's a vital part of a business's growth. Good marketing and good sales brings in good amounts of revenue. Good operations scales that revenue. And so they're, they're very important. So we do teach the CEOs in our sphere, in our world that their operators, if your operator isn't coming back and saying no to you, if you haven't heard that from them, that's probably not the person for you.
- [11:30]
B
Yep.
- [11:31]
A
I want to wrap up, but Richard, you got anything to add before we close out?
- [11:34]
C
I guess the only thing is just coming back to the point I made earlier about the simple directives. It's not necessarily a case of simplicity. It's about what do you think is the right path and how do you argue for that? Really? Whenever I'm managing up, I have a reason that I think is right.
- [11:51]
A
And you start with that. Yeah, I know when you talk to me, you generally start because you know, I turn into happy to pissed off in a blink. Doesn't take much. So a lot of times Richard will pre reference stuff. He's smart enough not to go, hey, don't get mad but. Or don't freak out, but he generally starts off with and I've appreciated this and actually implemented it in my feedback to my CEOs and founders. But it's here's what the goal is. Can we agree on the goal? Because how do you argue that.
- [12:22]
B
I think that the other part that goes side by side with holding them accountable is you gotta provide for them. So first of all, you gotta come, you gotta study the company. Study them. And you have to start by reducing the noise and getting them to delegate tasks, freeing up their time. And from there you can have the conversations to hold them accountable. But you need to prove that you're here to make their lives and the company better.
- [12:50]
A
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I love it. Thank you so much guys. If you enjoyed this episode, like and subscribe, of course. Also, if you would like to get Tiago's guide to managing anyone, even Emma, head over to our Visionary Vault, www.specialopspodcast.com. you can sign up for free. We never try and sell anybody anything. We genuinely just want to provide some value for our communities. Thank you guys. It was fun.