How to Setup Your Team Well

July 04, 2024

In this episode of theREFINEnetwork Podcast, hosts Christopher and Evan discuss their strategies for effectively setting up and managing a team. They share personal experiences from their own companies, emphasizing the importance of morning meetings, referred to as "Muggs meetings."

These meetings are designed to set the right mindset, unify the team, set goals, and determine how team members can serve each other. Evan and Christopher provide an example structure for these meetings, including checking in on team members' current states and challenges, highlighting successes from the previous day, and setting goals for the current day.

They stress the importance of being proactive rather than reactive and fostering a supportive team environment. They also discuss the concept of being "closed-handed" or "open-handed" with certain company policies and practices, adapting as necessary for team success and growth.

The hosts conclude by offering to help others implement similar strategies in their own organizations, emphasizing the need for careful planning and customization to fit each unique team.

Episode Transcript

How to setup your team
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to the refined network podcast. We always say podcast. Even though it's going to go everywhere. Yes. So I'm always confused about that. But anyways, podcast is a very Universal word now. Yeah, it's a lot of things. It's the main foundation We just choose to do a bunch of things with it because you're an incredible minded human Anyway, who this human is I think all of you know, this is Evan.

I'm Christopher Today, we're gonna talk about Setting up your team In all the things that we do within our companies. And today in the last couple of days, we're down I'm down in South Carolina. Thanks again for hosting me. Always, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. So I knew you were going to say that.

Yeah. Southern hospitality, man. So it's, it's interesting. You have Southern hospitality and I have Midwest nice. Yeah, it's, it's [00:01:00] a lot in the same. So the, the thing that I've got to do these last two mornings is I've got to start the day with your team. And I want to go through, you know, the, this 10 minutes and I kind of, in my mind, it's 10 minutes of power, right?

When, when you and Aaron put the intentionality into that idea, what are you hoping that happens? When you guys move through that check in as a company in the morning.

Let me give you a 30, 000 foot view. Remember that question, by the way, of what, The meeting is, so we call it our mugs meeting, which is not like the best name, but it's an acronym. The M stands for mindset. The U stands for unify. G stands for goals. S stands for serve. So everyone shows up different.

They have, you know, some have kids or they're dropping off. Some of them, you know, live further away. Some of them, you don't know what happened. So, let's just say you have [00:02:00] two kids, you're taking them to school, you take a turn, now your coffee spilled in the car and there's goldfish all over the backseat.

Always goldfish. You're going to show up differently than the person who woke up early, who didn't have any kids running around the house that, you know, playing classical music and they're putting on their makeup with one of those makeup mirrors that have all the lights on it. That's what I picture.

That's a million dollar morning in your mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's, That's the goals right there. So in that, in that Muggs meeting, I want to get everyone's mindset, right? Yeah. So I don't know if you notice what my wife says at the beginning of the meeting, did you notice that? I think I was doing too many things.

Yeah. You were recording, but she says, welcome to work and she says it with welcome to work. And so people, some people will say it with her because that's the first thing she says is she says that to say. We are at work, like just want everyone to know. And sometimes I can, [00:03:00] it's for me to close off, be where my feet are, whatever happened that morning.

You know, Aaron and I, we're married. So, you know, there's frustrations that build up in the morning where we disagree on things and we have to I will say those 99 percent of the time get resolved before We start the day at work and because we know how heavy that is as you go throughout the day, it's like wearing a heavy jacket.

And it's just like, why am I carrying this around? Absolutely. Let me just take this off. Let me just apologize and swallow my pride. And so the mindset, the unify is I want everyone to be together. It's hard to unify a team if you're not together. So if you have a team. have team fun days and outings.

We want to spend time together. And so the next one is goals. I want to know everyone's goals in the company. And then I want to know how we can serve them. Is there any way we can serve them? So we ask them two questions. What was your success from yesterday? What are your goals for today? So you'll, [00:04:00] you'll know a lot about the, the people in your company when you ask them what, what do you define as success yesterday?

Right. You know, a lot of it's I got all my laundry done. Or I sold, you know, seven units of retail when I needed four. I had this guest come in that, you know, I didn't know what to do and it turned out beautiful. Or I went hiking yesterday. So you start to find out what's important to them, what they define success as.

Then their goals for today are very specific. So we used to have, well, just to get through today. I'm like, you get through every day so far. So can we be more specific? Right. Define what is getting through today or staying on time. I'm like, well, we all want to stay on time. Right. So can you give me a more specific goal?

So you heard I need to sell five units of retail, or I have a new guest and I just want to, you know, Make sure that have a great consultation with them. Like that, that's a great goal. I mean, most people just skim [00:05:00] through a consultation, but they're thinking, have a new guest. So it gets them thinking, it gets them planning for today other than showing up and just being like, well, I guess whatever happens today, like they're wanting successful people are proactive to their day.

The normal person in the world are reactive, correct? Like I've. Successful people, they take control of their life and they're proactive about their life. Most people are reactive. They just live their life and whatever comes to them, they'll just react to it. Right. And so, I fall into that sometimes. But when we wake up and we're proactive about our day we can, then we can define success.

Yep. If you're not proactive, you can't define success in your day or you're not going to see success as much. But if I say, all right, today, our goal is to record content, record podcasts. Yep. [00:06:00] If we do that today, that is success. So tomorrow they'll say, what was your success? I'm going to say we crushed it, hit our goal that we did yesterday.

So, it just it's, it's a 10 minute meeting. Now I've had salons do this, they're like, Oh, I love that idea. I'm going to do it. And then three days later, they're like, it didn't work. I'm like, well, it is a little different to bring. You can't just go in and say, all right, guys, we're going to meet 10 minutes before we start tomorrow.

I mean, I would say most salons I work with, everybody comes in staggered at different times. So, you know, if you tell people, all right, we're all going to start at the same time, you need to be here 10 minutes before that's, that needs to be carefully communicated and thought through and not just do it, do it.

Tomorrow. Right. And you got to, you got to make it inspiring and have a purpose. When you hear a meeting, nobody's Oh, shoot, I get to go to a meeting today. You know, like most people are like, okay, this is going to be a waste of my time. Cause their parents have sat in meetings and they talk about how draining it [00:07:00] is.

So when you have meetings, they got to be purposeful. They have to inspire. And it's just that meeting, We keep closed handed in our company right now because we see so much success from it. When you say just, just to break that, when you say closed handed, what does that mean? Yeah. Thanks for asking that.

So there's things in our company that are closed handed and open handed. So closed handed a year and a half ago was our dress code. It was black, white, gray or cream. We were closed handed. And then January of 2023, we opened handedly said, okay. Let's talk about this. What can we do to stay trendy professional so that became open handed?

Got it. So in our company, we have a shift that starts at 830 and the shift that starts at one We are closed handed on that. So if one of our staff said hey, I want to work at From 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. Right now we're closed handed on these are the two shifts we have now Let me [00:08:00] just go ahead and say I'm not saying that's right for everyone.

That's our that's how we run our business Would we change that in the future? I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what we're going to do this time next year, but I always want to be evolving company that is changing and growing to serve the staff and serve the guests. Yeah. So we're in a space.

We have 15 stations down. We're about to max them out. So, We in our last space we maxed out we did 830 shift and a 3 p. m Shift because that was six hour shifts and we were open till nine. We got in the new building. We had all the space So we're like, hey instead of working the three, why don't that crew come in at one and we have an overlap?

Yep from one to two thirty. Yep And our team knows once we max out these chairs, we're going to have to go back to true split shifting to maximize because everybody knows what our financial goals are for the year. [00:09:00] And this is the first year that I can remember since I've been on in 2018 that I feel like All of our staff is let's freaking do this.

Yeah, and it's not oh, yeah, those are numbers Those would be great for y'all. I'm like, no, this is us. We can't get there unless you guys Are being successful as well what I wanted to share and and thank you for breaking that down What I want to share is the the experience of someone that's that One, I think that if I think about it the way that I do, the other piece is that we have a very, very similar role that we show up and we are on an ownership team of these companies, right?

And we do want to serve. When I look at it, what you guys do in that 10 minutes, Aaron Erin checks them in, they understand they're at work, right? That, that right there is paramount. If, if you can say, hey, you had a rough morning, let's honor that. And also in the moment of it, Where are you at right now?

When you go around and every single person checks in, you're also getting an individual weather report. Where are you at today? How stressed are you? How can I show up for [00:10:00] you? So as you, as you go around with that, you set an intention to it. Everyone checks in. There's, there's goals that are set. And then that, that last bit, which I thought was so beautiful, was People were, some people were saying that they had open time and they were able to help others.

And they also said what they intended to do at that open time. That's such a powerful thing to think about because in the moment of it, I don't know about you, but when I watch the majority of the world, if, if someone just I don't know, I just have this open time. A lot of people will resort to the small screen with the thumb moving, right?

Yeah. And it's so easy for us to fall into that, right? But what I, what I witnessed as I watched this, Some humans that had availability, they made, they made it known that they're also there to serve. Some people that had the opposite day, which was, Hey, wow, I might have overcommitted myself a little bit in this, this two to four o'clock timeframe is going to be really challenging for me.

And I might need some support. So you both had [00:11:00] people that, that were offering support and then you had people that were requesting support. And now everyone on that team understands, wow, Hey, she has a little bit of open time today. That'd be a great opportunity for me to connect in her. There's a couple of things I've been wanting to ask.

There's a technique that I saw her do on a client the other day that I would love to know more about. Right. And on the other side of it, it's Hey, wow, it sounds like she's going to have a situation around too. I conveniently like, I'm, I'm good from two to two twenty. I'd love to, you know, step in and serve.

So, we should, we, we see people show up different. Then we did before because the person you're talking about who I think was Brenna. She was Stacked from two to four before we would have these mugs meeting. She would come in I'm not saying she but the stylist would come in stressed. Yeah, I'm gonna figure this out.

God. I hope somebody's available I'll get them last minute Which is which is being really like it's it's choosing to be reactive in the moment Whereas when you do the check in you're not You then move. So Oh, [00:12:00] I'm ahead of the situation. So she comes in proactive. She comes in without a care in the world.

Oh yeah, somebody is going to be there to help me. Right. And if not, everybody's going to be aware and maybe can break away to do that. Right. Yeah, people, we found out that people show up differently to that meeting and here. And another thing is it unifies the team in a good way and in a team mindset.

Let me give you an example. So we haven't had this in a very long time, but people would show up to that meeting and then you can't see me on the podcast, but I am slouching and they'll just sit there and they'd come to them and be like, what's your goal, what's your success from yesterday and go, and they'll look at their phone.

They're like

my success from yesterday is. Just, I made it through to the day. My goal today is I, I got a couple of haircuts and I, I'd love to sell one, you know, product and everybody in the room's going, what in the world is going on? Right. So that's like they're, they're waving a flag of Hey, I'm not okay.

And [00:13:00] so when you have a larger organization and you don't have those check ins, it's easier, easier for those people to slide right in and hide. Yep. And nobody knows. Now, once the leaders find out, two things happen, everybody already knows, or they're like, I had no idea. It's yeah, they, they've been struggling for a while.

But when you have those check in meetings every morning, everybody on the team, they know. Right. They're like, okay, the, this, that's not usually their normal posture. Right. And so. I love that you shared that one because in a, in a past point in the time of, of Antigen we, we were meeting weekly every single Monday for about an hour as a team.

And I will tell you some of the hardest points of those meetings, when you, when you went into that slouched form in the speak and the way that you were looking at life, I can't help it, but I always think back to Winnie the Pooh and it's Eeyore. Right? It's, that, that is [00:14:00] an Eeyore type of human, that is an Eeyore personality type, and where, where I also know is we can choose to be Tigger as well, right?

Tigger could have had all of Eeyore's hardships, he would have just weathered them differently. And I think the other interesting thing to me is, when, when, cause Eeyore, it's actually really interesting, they were really wise about how they wrote this Your was always allowed to just be exactly where as his friends.

They, they, they saw him, they let it be known like, Hey, we're, we're still going to be here for you, buddy. Like you have bad days too. We all have bad days. You just, you happen to have a series of bad days. Yeah, it was like 14 years. But the, the, when, when I would go back to that. And as you were saying that I remember the individuals that would be in these meetings and I mean, it would be weeks on weeks on weeks.

And at the time as the leader that I was, I even looking back at this now, I had an opportunity to check in and I wasn't using that in the best way that I could have now the way that I would look at it. Your personality type is okay. What can I like? What? What can I do to deploy and really, really [00:15:00] help them raise out of this area?

And not not that I want to do it for them. I want to give them the space so that they can rise themselves. Hey, let me know about your challenging morning, because sometimes we just got to let it out. And what a beautiful thing to be able to do, and when you have that check in in the morning, when someone has an opportunity in the afternoon, or even just a quick passing by, imagine if you knew how much a compliment would matter to someone, and how easy that would be, right?

To be able to just share with them hey, I see you. You're going to get through this. I believe in you. Yeah. You said something that reminded me that I want to help. I want to help everyone. And like when I see hardships or something, I want to rush in and save the day. And that's most of the time, not the best thing, correct?

Because I want to be there to what you said. I want to listen to them. I want to, I want to give advice that they want advice. A lot of times they don't even want advice, but they have to figure this. This is [00:16:00] human life. They have to figure it out themselves. If I come in and swoop in and save the day all the time, they're not learning.

They're not growing. Right. And it's really hard when you have people in your, your life and family and friends and even in work where there's financial situations and it may work as easier because I'm like, Oh, I can give you more opportunity, right? Every day of the week. Yeah. Before we just hand over cash and, you know, helping financially.

They're not learning to the lesson that's enabled. I know I'm about to learn this hard from our kids as they get older, because I mean, yeah, my mom, my step mom's probably listened to this. I mean, she swooped in and saved the day a lot when I was younger and I didn't really learn the hardships of that till later on.

And when I got married, Aaron's Oh, hang on. You know, I, I wised up a lot during that time, but You know, I needed, I needed to get hit in the teeth a couple times and I think in humans, it's, it's, it's good to [00:17:00] It's good to fail here and there because that's when that's when you learn the growth I mean, we just did a another podcast I don't know if it's gonna release before this or not where everything we did a webinar and it just crashed and failed Well, you know what?

It's not gonna happen again, right because we we learn from that failure Well and in the event that it does we now have a crisis plan We now like exactly what to do. We have a best practice plan, but going back to it, you know, and really bringing it through, I think the, you know, however you do it within your company and understanding that in the morning of the day, that there is a different opportunity to seize.

Right. And in whether. Whether you're doing, you know, 10 minutes of power with your whole, your whole organization, or you're just in, you know, the break room or, you know, up at the front of, of, you know, our organization where a lot of people will gather in the mornings, remembering, remembering to just be aware of others.

And then also, like I always think of it, like all the humans that you have within your organization, everyone has their own type of [00:18:00] seasoning, right? And some days, like some days you can't season the soup. The soup the same way that you did the day before. Yeah. And remembering to have that check in because there's such an opportunity.

And then also the thing that the last point of it is the goal piece of it and going to serve. So you're specific about what you want to do. You're also specific about what you can do. And that was such a powerful thing to see and be in person with it. And I just celebrate you. You and Aaron are incredible, both salon professionals and then also business owners.

You guys lead incredibly well. We we can fake it really well. Another thing that it does for having that daily check in. Is we're in front of our team every morning I mean, last night you're like, Hey, what's the plan tomorrow? I'm like, we're going to get dressed. I got to take the kids to school and then I'm going to be there for that meeting.

So I make that a top priority. We had someone who has has gracefully left the company yesterday. Like [00:19:00] it's, it's all good. We wish her the best, love her. She did everything right in leaving the company with grace. And we, that happened yesterday afternoon. We're able to tell. Most of our team who was there.

So I do want to preface, cause there was something that said earlier, I was like, I need to go back. This is not everyone in the company being there at 8 30. These are the shift people that actually are working. Yep. Yeah. I don't want you to think Oh my gosh, they have a day off they're coming in, but we were able to let them know that this person is stepping off staff and we want to attack that first thing.

Typically what we do, if someone has left staff is we call them, we call everyone, our company immediately. Because we don't want, we don't want the gossip. What happened? Hang on. They left. They didn't tell you. They told you. So we, when anyone, anytime anyone leaves our company, we'll pick up the phone and call them.

But I will say with these meetings have helped so much because if it's later in the afternoon, we'll We can be like, all right, we could talk to [00:20:00] them in the morning. Unless it's something that we feel like is going to go in a negative way. We haven't had that in a while. It's we've had some people step off gracefully and we wish them the best and things like that.

But those meetings are just help us to, to communicate, to be You know, I say, as a leader, you got to be available, visible, and valuable. So we're available to our team, we're visible, we're there, and we're creating value in that moment. So, you know, it's worked wonders in our company. I'm not saying if you want to implement this in your company, please reach out to me.

Because it's not, if you're like, Oh yeah, we're going to do this tomorrow. It's, it's not going to work. Read it from the last episode. There's fine print. You need to read fine print. You need to read so you can reach out to me. I'm on you can message the refined network on Instagram or evansilver. co or email at hello at the refined network.

com. So if you're like, Hey, I'm interested in this. How'd you do it? Reach out to us. We're here to serve. Awesome. Well, this is a good [00:21:00] convo. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for listening to the Refine Network podcast. And we'll see you next time.

How to Setup Your Team Well

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