Brad Johnson: Today, I want to share with you one of the biggest mistakes I see many financial advisors make as they’re just getting their team to a point where they start to grow and expand from 3 to 5 to 10 to 15 and start to build a business bigger than themselves. And in fact, it’s one word and just simply switching this word can make all the difference when it comes to your culture, when it comes to your expectations, how you hold people accountable, and honestly when you have to let people go, how that plays out and the impact it makes, not only on that individual that you have to transition out, but also on the team that’s left behind.
So, with that, I want to share a story. At Triad we formed November 1, 2020, so just a handful of years ago. And I remember the early days as I’m sure many of you when you first had that honeymoon, that vision of, “Hey, I’m going to do this different. I’m going to build a business that deserves to exist.” And I’ll never forget, we had an old conference room table. It was actually the same office we’re still in today. We’ve just expanded quite a bit over the last few years, and there was a conference room table that was left behind and there were five of us sitting around that table, myself, Shawn, my co-founder, and our first three team members. And I remember almost looking at each other like, “What now?”
In fact, the conference room table, if you set your elbow on it, literally the top would fall off. And so, that was the situation. And I think in those early days of building a business, it feels like a family, and in fact, that was the term we used. We said, “Hey, this is the Triad Fam. We’re going to get together.” I mean, I think we did a happy hour every second or third day. It was a little bit of like the band of the misfits from the old Frosty the Snowman, the kids cartoon we watched back in the day where it was like, “Hey, we’re going to do this different. These are the people that were the early believers and we’re going to go do something completely different in finance.”
And that one word actually as things played out as we went from a team of 5 to a team of 10, 20 today, north of 100 team members in Lawrence, Kansas but when I look back and look at the lessons, that word ‘family’ got in the way of making the tough decisions it takes as an entrepreneur, as a business owner to move forward to progress, to keep accountability. As we say, A players only on our team. And so, I’m going to get into the three lessons today that we learned. But the first version of this, I remember, because we had said family, we had our first underperforming team member. And the way it played out, this individual, in the early days, I’m sure many of you can relate.
It’s kind of, “Oh shoot, we need help.” Here’s a role. There is no job description. There is no website that you can submit your resume. In fact, I don’t even think we had a website at the time, and I remember we had a certain team member that they were hired for this role and then they didn’t like that. That frustrated them. Before we knew it, the job description had been whittled down to, “I’ll just mail gifts out.” The problem was we had about five clients at the time, so that was probably a two-hour-a-week job. But we were so worried about upsetting people, about, “Oh, well, we’re a family here. If this person’s upset, then it’s going to impact the rest of the team.”
And we just struggled to have a real conversation and say, “Hey, unfortunately, that’s not going to fly. Here’s the role you were hired for, and if you can’t do that, that’s okay. We’re just going to have to talk about transitioning you out.” And so, we kept punting that decision. And if you go back to the word ‘family,’ that was one of the things getting in the way. And so, today what I’m going to share with you, and we did eventually let that person go, by the way. The problem was it strung on for six months, which created cultural issues because other team members are like, “I’m doing a 40-hour-a-week job. This individual’s doing a two-hour-a-week job. Not fair,” which if you listen to your team, you got to agree with them on that one.
And so, we kept punting it and then there was a culture issue. Just lots of things going on. And what ended up happening, it hurt our team. It hurt how productive we were on a given week. It created so much sideways energy. And so, today what I want to share with you are three lessons that came out of that, that you can do to make sure that doesn’t get in your way as a financial advisor, as you scale a business. Lesson number one, words matter. Lesson number two, establishing boundaries and accountability. And lesson number three, how a team approach versus a family label makes all the difference in the world. Okay. So, let’s dive in.
Lesson number one. One of the things we say a lot is language creates. In fact, at Triad, we have a Triad bad words list, and one of those bad words is actually ‘employees.’ I think most people when they hear the term ‘employee,’ it’s like, “Eh, neutral at best,” but I don’t think anybody really walks around saying, “I love being an employee.” But what people do love is a sense of belonging, a sense of I matter here, a sense of I belong, and I think that’s the natural gravitation in early business to the word ‘family.’ It’s warm. It feels like you matter. You’re part of something. The issue is it gets in the way of tough decisions. So, if you think about it, how do I let a family member go?
How do I take an underperforming family member and say, “Hey, sorry, we’re going to have to transition you out.” And so, simply just the language behind family and the meaning would get in the way. And also, if you think about it, the team that’s left behind, what happens when you vote a family member off the island? It’s like, “Wait, I thought we were family here.” So, there’s confusion. And so, one of the things we talked about at Triad in the early days is A players only. Well, if you think about an A player, an A player isn’t a family member. It’s actually a team member. So, when we said ‘employee’ is a bad word, one of the things we started to talk about is what word replaces it? And so, A players only, team, team approach here.
And so, simply by changing the verbiage, it now gave us permission. On a team, you hold people accountable. You have to show up for your teammates. And so, the language and the meaning behind that language, the first thing I would do if you want to develop an intentional culture is you have to actually look at the words you’re using with your team, what you talk about in meetings, how you describe things. And sometimes the language and the words in business actually have a different meaning than the culture you want to create. And so, that was the first one. Words matter. At Triad, ‘employee’ is a bad word. Now, we don’t use ‘family’ either. It’s a team, and that’s the meaning behind it with really clear definitions on what it takes to show up as an A player on that team.
Lesson number two, establishing boundaries and accountability. Think about families, like families are a beautiful thing. I know I love mine, but sometimes, hey, there’s friction in families just like there’s friction on a team at work, kind of we call it the storming phase as new teams form and start to norm and then perform. And if you think about those boundaries, family’s kind of a blurry one because no matter what, I know I’m going to show up for my family. I’m going to love them no matter what. Now, as a team, I’m not saying you can’t take some of those qualities, but as a team, there’s a different responsibility. There is a job to do, to be on that team. Think about basketball. If you’re not doing your job, you’re not going to be put in the game. If your teammates can’t count on you, then they’re not going to pass you the ball.
And so, there is a standard that is set for a team member that must be upheld. And to be a great teammate, there are certain expectations, be your word, follow through, hit the deadlines, show up with a positive attitude, all of those things that it takes to create a great culture and a great team. And so, it just makes a lot more sense. So, if you think about it, it’s like it’s much easier to hold a teammate accountable than it is a family member. In fact, some of the biggest issues in life happen when family members aren’t showing up like they need to, but you can’t boot them out of the family, at least not until it gets really bad. And so, that helps. Just the word itself helps establish boundaries, helps establish accountability, and we found that to just be much more conducive to a high-performing environment and team.
Number three, team approach versus family label and why it matters. I’ve hit all over this, but back to how you curate a team, think about the talent on a team. And if you look very much, you all know I’m a Chiefs fan, but who you cheer for, putting that aside, how have the Chiefs won multiple championships over a short period of time? They’re constantly after better and better talent, but not only talent, talent that works well together, plays well together, fits into the system and the scheme. And that’s one of the things that we’ve seen as you start to look at it, culture fit and skillset, those were two of the things that we started to really curate for when we looked at adding great talent to our team.
But I’ll tell you when you start to look at a team-based approach versus a family approach, what is the loyalty to the mission that team is on? And I will tell you, certain family members, it’s, “Hey, this family member’s into this, this family member’s into that.” There’s like a little bit of freedom because you’re just part of the family no matter what. You just belong because you were born into it. If you take that into business and look at a team, well, the team has to be on a mission together if they’re going to win games. And if you look at it, the first one that comes to mind that I think about, James Harden, incredible basketball player, has won at least one MVP, maybe multiple MVPs at this point, constantly one of the top scorers in the league.
But guess what? He’s also the guy that’s bounced around to I don’t know how many different teams now. Never won a championship. And so, there’s a loyalty factor. If you think the loyalty to the mission and to the team, it has to align. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about we. And if you think about the team that’s just bred into being a great teammate. If you think about families, sometimes some of those behaviors still show up and it’s like, “Well, they’re still part of the family, so we love them no matter what.” And so, back to the team, this gives you the ability to say, “Hey. It’s not about you. It’s about us. We have to get here together. We have to be loyal to the mission, the vision that we’re all on.”
And so, just simply changing that perspective, I’ve found, has allowed us to be more unified, more directed, and more bought in to the mission at hand. So, for those of you where that really hit home, if you’re struggling with this, we’re going to do something a little different today. Never done this before. It’s going to take some courage, but if anybody out there is watching this or listening to this, I’m going to do a free coaching session. But what it’s going to be, it will be a future episode on the show. So, if you want to dive in on this topic, if you’re struggling to really get that culture aligned, which by the way I know is very common. In finance, we struggle a lot with high turnover. We struggle a lot with people that don’t stick around. Not a great culture.
Trust me, 20-plus years in this business, I’ve pretty much seen about everything at this point. I’ve seen fathers and sons that don’t talk to each other anymore because of this business. So, if you’re out there and this is kind of hitting home with you and you’d like to dive into a free coaching session, I’m going to invite you now, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to record it and we’re going to put it out so others can learn because trust me, you’re not alone. Congratulations, you’re normal because every company, there is no perfect culture. Really, the rent is due every day and you have to continue to curate it over and over and over to get where you want to go.
And it’s a team sport culture. It’s not founder top down. Here’s how everybody should act. It has to be bottom-up and it has to be everyone to get where you want to go. So, that’s my offer. If this hits home with you, there will be a link below this, I believe. If you’re watching on YouTube, you’re listening on audio, we have the DBDL hotline. Just text it and we’ll have a real coaching session. And my goal would be to help you and then by the fact that we’ll put that conversation out there to others, help them as well.
So, in summary, if you want to make a massive impact on your culture, especially when you’re small and you’re starting to scale, don’t use the word ‘family.’ Replace it with ‘team.’ I’d also recommend don’t use the word ‘employee.’ Find something to create your tribe, your people, what your culture’s about. I recommend ‘team,’ and I’m telling you that from a guy that has messed that up along the way, we had to learn, we had to course correct. But really the three big lessons we talked about today. Words matter, so be careful which ones you use. Choose wisely. Number two, establish boundaries and accountability and the right words help with that. Number three, the team approach versus the family label and how it makes all the difference in the world.
So, I hope this was helpful. If it was, leave a comment, subscribe if you’re not already, so that the next video pops up on your feed. And love to hear in the comments which of these three hit home the most with you or if you’re out there struggling, what you need the most help with. That helps us create future episodes that can help you out, make sure we’re speaking, and talking about topics that can serve you. So, with that, thanks for watching or listening. I will catch you on the next episode.
