[Music] hi Shannon Waller here with Dan Sullivan and welcome to the inside strategic coach podcast today Dan we're going to talk about a tool that you have kind of brought back into the Forefront called the 4x4 it's a tool that you use to really facilitate phenomenal teamwork with the people with whom you work most closely so we're going to talk about the different elements today but first of all talk about how did you come up with the idea of a 4x4 what's the context behind it well I think part of the reason and this would be the reason for a lot of the tools in strategic coach is that I'm not a manager and yet I'm involved in projects with teams so those are two realities to my life one is that I see all my achievement forward as the completion of specific projects and in my life that would have to do with new workshops new Concepts new books new podcasts so I see the future just as a constant series of bigger and better projects that produce bigger and better results and I'm in teamwork with people but I'm not a manager of those projects so how at the very beginning do I get the team totally in alignment with what my intention is not only what the results have to be but what the performance and the actual experience of teamwork has to be so this is the reason for this tool so when we're let's just start with creating a job I always use an impact filter to create the job because it gives the actual getting of the person is the project and then there's a purpose that that person is so important why we need this new person and the difference that will make the importance of it and then the ideal outcome and the best and worst that can happen and then if this person is really acing the job there's measurable results and that's how they get hired but once they're hired then the work actually starts so I have another tool and I hadn't really thought about it because you know I did it for my own purposes but we're into the stage now where we're looking at everything as a game changer inside strategic coach right from the beginning of the signature level right to the lead Workshop in the game changer so I see the entire progression for as long as you're a strategic coach you're learning ways to change your game and the biggest game that I want is the game that's actually taking place with my teams inside my projects so I came up with this form which is called the 4x4 and it's got four boxes and it's got specifications measurable specifications in each of the four boxes so that's where the 4x4 came and then we can talk about the four boxes great well the four different categories first one is is performance second one is results the third is being a hero and the fourth column which is probably everyone's favorite is drives me crazy but we're going to get to that in just a moment so Dan let's talk about performance and we have talked about the words in this box before but they're really really important and I love that there are only four in terms of how you want people to show up so can you describe the performance section of the page yeah and I think that when I say these for qualities their characteristics of how people show go up in the morning and they go through the day and this is your experience of them my biggest requirement is that people be alert regarding the specific work that we're doing so I actually take the word alert and then I specify this is what I want you to be alert to so one of my key people her name is Melissa Boyce and I've been using Melissa at the front of the room and we've been going through her 4x4 in the 10 times workshop and the biggest thing I want her to be aert HT for because she's responsible for getting referrals in all my classes that immediately go to the sales team so the thing she has to be alert to is any possibility of someone being willing to give a referral and then getting that referral and making sure within a very short period of time that the the salesperson who's assigned to that referral client is following through so that we never drop a referral and then the next one is that you're very very curious about what's happening with that referral so not only do you pass it on to a salesperson but you're very very curious and you're constantly going back to the salesperson have you phon them and because the salespeople you know are very busy and they go through a lot of names they're phoning every day but for mine in the 10 times program I want them to be top of the list and top of the mine for the sales and so I want her to be curious about what's happened to each referral and then responsive in the sense that when a sale is made when contact is made that I'm told about it but most importantly that you tell the person who gave the referral and you constantly give them an up to-date you gave me this name and I just want to tell you what we've done so Melissa every day is actually phoning them or sending them emails and saying you know we're following up I just want to keep you in the loop about what's happening and then the other one is resourceful that she comes up with ways of being resourceful and one of the things that she came up with is that she has people take out their phone and they text her and then she's got who they are and she says you know you may be out and just meeting someone saying you know this person could really use the Gap in the gain or the for sees or you know the lifetime extender and instead of having that as a thought and then maybe when you get back to the office you remember it just take out your your phone and just text me and say so and so wants the Gap in the gain so that was resourceful on her part so she's doubled the number of referral she got just by having people have her on their hot button on their iPhone that's it so for five years now I have to give her an a an a an A and A for being alert curious but I told her right from the beginning that this is how you be aert curious responsive and resourceful that's box number one so it's the 4x4 so that's the first of four and then the next one is results and that is as you're doing your work I want you to be constantly making gains in for area I want you to get your results faster I want you to get your results easier I want you to get your results cheaper in other words that we're getting bigger results but it's not costing us anymore to get bigger results and the fourth one is bigger that every quarter every year we we getting more referrals more referrals are signing up the 10 times program and all of this is specific just to her role as my growth manager because we get a lot of signups in the program more and more through our use of media and through our use of our website and podcast but still the best people come from the best people the greatest people in the Strategic coach program came from the greatest people in the Strategic coach program because we're asking people to make AIG commitment we're asking people to write a big check and social proof is really needed and the fact that someone that you really trust whose judgment you really respect says you know just go to the Strategic coach and sign up that's huge marketing so that's a reality with the type of business that we're in and most businesses that are service businesses that are relationship businesses referrals are so crucial so we've got that's the second box so alert curious responsive resourceful as far as performance goes as far as results go faster easier cheaper bigger I talk to her every quarter and we review and I have blackboards I don't have an office I have a table in our Cafe both in Toronto and Chicago and we have blackboards and I can see the results on the Blackboard and every day she's coming in she's making adjustment you know this workshop's filling up we've already started the next workshop and that's the real result you have the results of getting referal but the actual result is getting people who actually sign up for the program and I kind of like how you talk about the fact that you don't really have meetings so it's almost eliminated the need for meetings because you can see it you've got your dashboard literally in the form of a Blackboard that you're both in you may chat about it or she may give you a short conversation but there's never an official meeting which is such a Time waster for so many people so there's an efficiency to this that's pretty amazing but we're still only halfway through the page yeah and I'm really being sneaky this because I'm actually demonstrating the 4x4 sheet but I'm bringing Melissa up to the front and she's talking about how this 4x4 sheet is so important to her so and I just saw her about an hour before we started this podcast and I said what's the impact and she says boy if I didn't know it before I sure know it now and she said I she said I'm seeing depths to this and I'm seeing Dimensions to this that I hadn't seen before so I'm doing my performance review with her right in front of the room where she has to tell people why this has worked so well for her and I think it's made a huge impact and also this was invented six years ago just because I'm not a manager but I want absolute Clarity and the 4x4 sheet actually does about 95% of what most people consider management okay we're totally clear about the results and those are on the blackboards in our Cafe and those get updated every time there's a change she comes in erases one number puts a higher number in so that's real simple so that's part of management you know being clear about the results but the other one is you know where you work with people to try to make them better get them clear the sheet does this so right from the beginning we're totally clear about what's expected so that's the top two boxes so we've got two out of the four and then the lower left hand corner so you just think of a 8 and a half 11 sheet and it's divided horizontally and it's divided vertically and so there's these four boxes so I'm going to talk about the lower leftand corner and that's being a hero this changes the top two boxes really don't change that much but the bottom leftand box changes more than any others and that is I keep coming up with new strategies of how we're going to improve the referral process and I create these as sort of categories so one of them is called capture to sign up the capture to sign up and the whole point is that in one day if she gets 25 referrals and that happens I mean she's had as many as 40 referrals within 24 hours all of those referrals are in the hands right at the top of the list of the relevant salespeople and those salespeople may be in Chicago they may be in Toronto they may be in the ukuk so she's very busy the next day but within 24 hours and all during the workshop she's sending off got new referral for you and everything else and not only that but she logs them in she's got a sheet of her own and she's going over her sheet all the time so we have a whole series of projects and then we talk and I say you know maybe we can come at this in a different way well that would be another project but her carrying out these specific projects which may be 3 months in duration or 6 months in duration or just for this year and one of them is 565 it's called the 565 project so when we started the 10 times program you know we had maybe 50 to 100 people and I said you know I want 565 people in the program and she says well why 565 and I said well you're asking the question is the reason why I did it well why 565 and I says it's a number that you'll remember and this quarter where actually passing 565 so this has been a 5year project but we're crossing over and you know there will be champagne there'll be treats and everything when we cross over and she gets bonused for the results of filling up the workshop so she gets rewarded a lot for doing it the interesting thing is in five years we've had no misunderstandings we've had no disagreements there's been no unclarity it's just that the sheet is there and she has it right next to her computer the sheet that was created on the very first day when she came into the RO and every day she comes in she just reviews the sheet and I haven't had to manage the sheet manages and the numbers on the Blackboard manage she's in every one of my workshops so she comes in and she goes about her business of gathering referrals and she talks to everybody and it's a rule that the people who are the best new sources of referrals are the people who were the past best people who give referrals like giving referrals and they don't really want to be rewarded that much they just enjoy the activity and so you got to zero in with every Workshop who the top 10 past referral sources are because those are the first 10 you want to go to you know it's like bartenders they know who's a drinker yes this has a more positive outcome well and the other thing about being a hero you use the language very intentionally and Melissa talks about this too is just how much she really loves being a hero to you and she makes the point in the workshops that your teams love being a hero to you and they want to know specifically and exactly how they can do that and if anyone's questioning this information Gallup has done numerous studies that's what they do and they say one of the number one frustration for team members is not knowing what's expected of them not knowing how to make their manager or the company happy so this in one small box of four things well actually 16 but particularly this section Dan really knowing how she can win in her role I think is a really significant piece of information well let's go to the fourth box yeah the fourth box first of all that everything I've set up until now is specific to the particular job but and positive and positive but there's a box which is called this drives me crazy on everybody's sheet it's this drive drives Dan crazy okay this is just general and it's who I am it's part of my personality and I have idiosyncrasies you know and I want to tell the person right up front that for the most part this is going to be a dream but if you do four things I'm going to turn into a axe murderer you know I said I go hallucinatory and I start thinking about the end of your job if you do these four things you know and it's so funny because when I introduce this this drives me crazy in the workshop the clients will say you mean you tell the person what drives you crazy and I said well let me ask you a question have you ever hired someone who according to the job description did everything that's on the job description but you still fired them because they drove you crazy and the hands go up the hands go up and I said how many of you are repeat firers of people because they drive you crazy and I said said did it ever clue you that they don't know what drives you crazy that it's peculiar to you now it's not completely peculiar to me because there's aspects of kbe profiles you know where you get real conflict and one of the conflicts that's you know blueprinted in because of the kby is that I have a 10 quick start and the real power that makes Melissa she's a lawn follow through and I have a two follow through so there's a five Point difference she she's a seven she's a seven but her quick start is like a four a three or four yeah she's a 5744 kby 5744 and the thing is that she's got a system she works the system but I may not be getting information back so one of the things about my particular kby I'm a 22104 and I'm Not Unusual in that particular profile you married one and you work with one so your husband and and I have exactly the same profile and we don't do research before we make a decision okay we just make a decision and then we start doing research about whether it's the right decision so a follow through standpoint they're following through and from their perception nothing happened that day to report on and to me that's major research that nothing happened that day because I have all sorts of questions why nothing happened day you know for example she's giving the salespeople lots of referrals but they're not making sales I said why is that are they going to the top of the list do they know that it's my referral do they know it's for my workshop and she says yeah I think they do and I said oh no no you can't think that they do you have to go and check to see if they're following through every single day so this is the one aspect it's not management but I'm simply saying I need certain kinds of information and it's mainly on the information basis so one of mine is black holes okay you know great referrals are provided by multipliers that's what I call the entrepreneurs they're multipliers in workshops that fall through the cracks and they get lost and I said oh I said well that defeats the whole purpose of your job if referrals get lost or they fall through the cracks so I have to know this but this is just general about anybody that works with me so this isn't specific to this particular person so this is a general this just drives me crazy well Dan I think your point that no information is actually information is one point that I want to get across to team members so this to my mind is incredibly relevant in terms of teamwork and for a lot of people with different kobby profiles and even just a different mindset they think well I'm only going to report when there's something to report and you and Babs is exactly the same no information is information because then you start asking questions why what's happening what's the priority what assumptions are people making how are they thinking about it this the right strategy there you know the people you're working with do we have to change that up I mean are we approaching things is there an improvement so all the Innovations actually come from no information I mean nothing's happening well that's massive information and the other one is kept in dark actually good things are happening and I'm not being told about it right kept in the dark you can't keep me in the dark I hallucinate if you keep me in the dark well let's talk about hallucinating cuz you haven't seen the acts yet because this was a big point in a recent Workshop where with a lack of information everyone makes it up and they make it up negative and we start creating fantasies in our head about what someone's doing or not doing or what their intentions are and it's never positive so talk about being hallucinogenic in those circumstances because I think it's a really good point I want to connect this to actual reality about what happens when you deprive people of sensory input and there are Tranquility tanks so what it is it's a box that you go into and it's got about a foot or so of salt water that you float on it but it's completely dark inside and there can be no sound so you just float in it and the moment that you are put into one of these Tranquility tanks your mind starts to really do strange things because it can't see anything it can't hear anything and the salt water you're not grounded so you're not feeling the ground or anything like that frequently there's condensation that gathers from the ceiling it starts dripping on your forehead so you can't see anything you can't hear anything but you hear it drip drip and it hits you on the head well for me I've got a very active imagination I go kind of crazy so I just take that and they actually use this for a turture you know they'll sedate someone and then put them in a wet suit with blind ERS on and they put them in one of these Tranquility T it's not so tranquil if you're being tortured yeah and it's the worst torture because the mind starts working on itself and they start hallucinating well it's just the nature of my mind that if I'm not getting lots of information after I've made a decision I start hallucinating things are going wrong and everything else and that's just me and this was me at probably 6 months old and it's me at 74 is just a function of how I so I need lots of input if there's a problem I need to know about the problem if there's a win I need to know because my whole forward planning and progress and my confidence and my sense of capability is based on getting the feedback and then there's bottlenecks things aren't working because there's something that's happening that there's a disconnect and bottlenecks are happening well I'm a really good Problem Solver I mean the whole strategic coach is bypasses and workarounds to to bottlenecks I mean this is what we sell but if it's happening to me and it's in our process and there's a bottleneck and the person's just frust you know it's just not working but they're not saying about this I'm the person you want to talk to about that because I'm very inventive and getting around this is how all the concepts in the program got created if somebody's running into an obstacle you know it's a strategy Circle we got a goal we have obstacles we take the obstacles we transform them and then final one is backstage itis okay so backstage itis is something happening in the Strategic coach General organization where someone has made a decision well we're not putting the emphasis on this right now so the people I'm working with are not getting the resources or their time is being used up in a way that's not actually focused on the results I say I couldn't care less about what else is happening this is our project this is what our focus is and that's for them to solve that problem but it's not our problem so so this is it and as your organization gets larger you can have these things that are where the performance of your team members are being affected by things that are part of the general organization but they're not something that we're responsible for but it's disadvantaging us backstage I just to me is when things are getting disconnected from the impact on the front stage and eventually it turns into bureaucracy which is you know I think in an every entrepreneural growing entrepreneural company we have to be very active to solve those problems but you can't do it if someone's keeping you in the dark so I just want to read through all or Dan have you read through the four because I think a lot of entrepreneurs resonate they're like can I just copy those well I did the black holes that you know referrals are being gained but they're being lost or they're dropping through the cracks kept in the dark both Dan and our referring clients are not being kept up to date about what is happening to each referral bottlenecks it takes more than 24 hours for the referrals to get to the hot list for the appropriate salesperson so something's not happening there and backstage itis the person you know in this case Melissa is increasingly involved in backstage activities that have nothing to do with our teamwork and nothing to do with our product so you know if I see my times being taken away from my projects and a strongly worded letter will be sent to head office to to actually do that and I'll say hey you're taking my person away from the number one activity in the company that brings in the biggest checks right this is number one I don't care what else is happening in the company interfering with the flow of the biggest checks in the company can't happen well I think that's actually a really critical point about the whole 4x4 is you're not having people do anything less and absolutely essential crucial vital projects and activities that grow strategic coach you know and that really comes out in your impact filter you have really discerned what is the most crucial thing to focus on so this is a very meaningful position you know she's a focus manager I like how you call her a growth manager so anything extraneous is extraneous like you're just really critical and so you know we look at 4x4s and people's roles and sometimes people been around for a long time but just going back to the why of why do you even have this position and what is the actual intent and purpose behind it and then here all these incredible success criteria in terms of Melissa she loves knowing she said you guys have never had any disagreements no points of conflict which in five years of working together is saying something because she knows exactly how she needs to perform be alert curious responsive resourceful she knows exactly the results she needs to focus on faster easier cheaper and bigger and she also knows how she can be a hero to you and the four things that absolutely drive you crazy so do not do them yeah so the confidence that she has in her teamwork with you is say it's a multiplier it's exponential whatever word you want to give it because she just knows exactly what's expected of her yeah you know my experience is because I coach you know more than 500 entrepreneurs and they tell me about the team problems they're having the you know the teamwork problems they're having and when I asked the entrepreneur the person that they're having problem with does not know one of the 16 things that are on the sheet of paper and I said you're Blueprinting failure the way you've set up the relationship they're spending half their energy every day guessing about whether they're doing the right thing is the entrepreneur happy with what I'm doing is there something that's really bugging the entrepreneur and I don't know you know they go to bed at night they don't sleep properly they get up in the morning they start to dread going to work because they just don't know so how can they be confident you know well it goes back to the for confident we want people to be committed we want them to be courageous we want them to constantly increase capability and we want their confidence well if they don't know any of this information none of those four things are going to happen so let me ask you a question because all of a sudden I said you know hey I'm using this in my teamwork with my projects and then I said why didn't I ever communicate this to all the other you know I mean it's one of those things you know it's just like a something happened to my brain but I brought it back this quarter and and actually I'm doing something really unique I have the new game changer program and I've actually done a 4x4 for everybody who's in the game changer program which I'm going to present in just a few days of how I want the entrepreneurs to perform the kind of results I'm looking from them how they can be a hero to me as the coach and what's going to drive me crazy about their participation in the game Cher program or nonparticipation as it may be so my feeling is that there's a multitude of things that just make this a really good concept right at this point and I was going to ask you the question you're in charge of the team program you've designed the entire team program you coach with a lot of the entrepreneurs sometimes onsite with with their teams what do you see now as the usefulness of the 4x4 I feel a little bit like you it's like oh why didn't I do more of this so it's definitely in our workshops this quarter in terms of the team leader program and it's one of the ones I do want to bring in because part of what I love about this Dan is it's one page it is one simple page in terms of what the expectations are and you know if you've seen job descriptions they're long and complicated and people often have too much in them one of the things I really love about this is just elegantly simple simple and super clear which is what people require and also does require to you say okay this is more important to me than 18 other things that this person could be doing so there's a whole internal process that I think is really critical and I was drafting one for Nicole who's one of my main strategic Partners so for me it's just one of those things I'm going to be coaching our clients on it I'm going to be coaching our team on it I'm going to doing inside strategic coach podcast on it so for me it's one of the ones that's again kind of bubbled up as being particularly relevant and especially as people are looking at building their most effective team it's like your Innovation manager is going to have a certain set of things that are different than for instance Melissa's rule so really being super clear in your thinking I think for me this is an amazing tool to help that happen much more quickly so I'm really looking forward to coaching people on how they can be really really clear and I have to say it's harder to fill out than it sounds yes you actually have to be really clear on what you want and I think that's the biggest challenge for a lot of folks is that they're not actually really clear on what they are expecting so they never make it clear to that person and then the teamwork is fuzzy and confusing yeah and I've run into just as a last point because we're going to wrap this up in just a minute or two but one of the things that I've come across with entrepreneurs is that they want to hold some information back so they can get the person you know I'm not going to tell them everything that's required I'm going to hold something back I would advise good people not to work with with you if that's your attitude I want nothing held back and not only that but I'm going to experiment during the next quarter where I'm going to have one of my team members actually do a 4x4 on me and what they want my performance to be what they want my results to be how I can be a hero to them and what drives them crazy things that I can do that can really drive them crazy but again it's going to be more General things you know the fourth one anybody could drive them crazy this way so they're just letting me know if people are driving me crazy this is what they're doing and I would appreciate greatly if you don't go there I mean that's another aspect of teamwork it's not just a top down it's really so that people can be in no it's horizontal yeah I have unique abilities they have unique abilities we each have separate focuses that are part of the teamwork that creates the overall results and that to me is partnership it's collaboration it's the best highest form of teamwork it's not just tell me what to do it's here's how to be and I think very few people think at this level about particular roles and what's expected of them and you just made it as you always do very simple and very clear and very essential so I really appreciate this tool Dan thank you thank you Shannon