Podcast Episode 113 Transcript: Four Results Every Business Owner Wants

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What Happens When You Judge the Work and Protect the Person? Explore a Leadership Approach That Improves Results.

Introduction and Podcast Rebrand Idea

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Self-Reliant Team Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.

Thinking about kind of rebranding our operation here, and thinking about a new name for the podcast. One that was proposed was “I Love My Job.” I love my job creating workplaces where people want to be. I kind of like that. As long as people don't take I love my job sarcastically. Sometimes people use I love my job as a sarcastic comment, but in this case it would be a literal meaning, “I Love My Job!” And that making this podcast about creating places, workplaces environments, cultures where people want to be, where they can excel, and where we can have a bunch of success.

Speaking for me, you know, I got into I started with employees. I knew that I could only accomplish so much by myself. And I was by myself for not very long. I started with employees in I want to say ninety, nineteen ninety-two ish, maybe ninety-one, I don't know. And my first employees were drivers for me because I didn't have a driver's license. That was the first people. My driver's license was revoked. So that's one of the first people I hired was a a driver. I had several of them till my till I finally got my driver's license back.

But you know, and then it went on from there. I knew that in you know, there's only so much I could do by myself. And so in order to grow and have more and do more, I'd have to have people help me get it done. And I also knew that the quality of those people, I thought it was all about the quality of the people. I didn't really realize it was about the quality of how I led the people and what I could develop people into being. And so into doing, into being, into acting, into that my influence had so much effort.

You know, I spent a lot of time just thinking, man, if I could just find the right people. And, you know, people's what they show up with, what they bring to the party, what they bring to the table. I'm not discounting that and saying it's not important. I'm just saying a lot. I think a lot of us, including myself, didn't really didn't really say, “Well, let me see how well I can develop people.” You know, “Let me see how what good I can get at this.” We just, we didn't go about it that way.

And I think a leader's job is to if we're gonna be a leader we're going to manage and lead people. And yes, there's a difference, but still, we're responsible for that. At some level, what no matter what you call yourself, if you're responsible for the results, you're the leader.

The Worth Work System

Today I want to talk about the the Work Worth System that I've created, and I want to talk about it in context of why the hell did I come up with this idea? And what good difference does it make to you? I mean, what's the gain? Why would you care? And here's why. Because what I want to talk about today is the results. What you get, what hard line, what bottom dollars, what's really what the result is of applying the principles that I'm talking about as you do that in your leadership, in your organization, in the team that you're working with. Okay.

And psychological safety is one of the results, but I mean that's one of the things. It sort of sounds like a theory, plus it sounds like it's I don't know, it sounds difficult, it sounds hard, and it sounds it doesn't sound like a hard line result. So I'm gonna talk about the actual business results that come from judge the work, protect the person, which is the principle inside the Worth Work System.

And judge the work, what that means is that we only judge the work. And we refrain from judging the person. We always protect the person. We judge the work because we must. We and we but we only judge the work and we always protect or respect the person. We never judge the person's worth or value or their identity. We don't tie what people do with who they are.

Matter of fact, we work towards a clear separation of what people do, their behavior, and who they are, their person, their worth, their value as a human being, as a as a soul, as a person on this earth. Because one thing that I do know, and the idea that we promote and part of the worth work system is that what people do or don't do, or what's done to them, behavior, has no effect on value. Okay. So what people do or don't doesn't mean nothing about who they are, their worth, or their value.

Psychological Safety Defined

Back to psychological safety. Let me just come back to that. When I say psychological safety, I'm gonna give you my definition so you know what I'm talking about. And here's what it is psychological safety, according to me, means that people feel, people trust that they're safe from value judgment. That means that they are in a place and the people in the group, all of them feel safe from being judged personally about what they do.

Okay, they feel safe from like, well, if you made a mistake, that means you're an idiot. Or if you screwed up this project, you're, you're not capable, or you're this, or you're that, or any of that. Those things are all value judgments that are based on what people do.

Inside the group, people feel safe to contribute and safe to give more and safe to speak and they have this psychological safety because and what it is is people feel safe from value judgment. That's what I'm talking about when I use that word. Value judgment specifically meaning that my value as a human being is being judged, like the kind of person I am based on what I do.

Okay, so it's the clear separation of behavior from worth and having no bearing, what you do have no bearing on your identity, on your value, on your worth, on you as a human being. Okay, that nothing can touch your perfect value, regardless of what you do.

Mistakes, Improvement, and Accountability

We judge the work. Sound like I had a little paper avalanche there. Something dropped on the ground, but we're we'll continue nonetheless. Judge the work, protect the person. In part of the Worth Work System means that people should expect and normalize and have mistakes be normal.

Not just mistakes, by the way, because I think mistakes are, well, kind of silly to mention because of course people are gonna make mistakes for hell's sakes. We're people. That implies unintentional things that happen. Of course, unintentional things are I'm talking about, we're gonna do things wrong on purpose.

Okay, we're not only going to make mistakes, but in this workplace, you're gonna make bad decision and it's gonna be you're gonna have bad communication, you're gonna make an assumption, things are gonna go wrong all the time and even on a good day it's not going to be quite as good as it could be because we are constantly going to be going for refining and improving. Constant improvement.

And and and that doesn't mean that we want people to feel like that they can never do a good job or it's never good enough. That's not the point. The point is the question is is how good can we do today and where else can we can improve? And we want to feel like that we're constantly moving in an improving direction.

But we don't want the expectation to be like, you've reached a certain pinnacle or a certain bar, a certain expectation, and that's it, you're done, you did a great job, and that's no further. It's not gonna be like that in this workplace. It's gonna be constant improvement.

And so no matter how good it gets or how bad it gets, we're constantly gonna be taking a look at the work, we're gonna be judging the results, regardless of what the results are, meaning no matter why they happened, whether it was poor judgment, because sometimes you're going to need the correction. Maybe the things that you're doing are gonna be not be working, and we're gonna have to do it differently or do it better. none of it, none of what you do changes your value as a person. And that is the foundation of judge the work, protect the person. We always hold the person in high regard and high respect. Okay, that's the foundation everything else is built on.

Results of the Worth Work System

Now, the results of the worth work system and the results of living in applying the principle of judge the work, protect the person are there's a lot of results. I'm just gonna go through a few of them for because here's what you can expect.

Number one: people just start acting like they care more. I will tell you, a lot of times of being a leader and for a lot of years, I just look out at my people and go, you just, there is no way you can possibly care about what's happening here based on what you're doing. Those are my thoughts.

And sometimes we look and we're just we're disappointed and we're sad and angry and frustrated because it just doesn't seem like people care. They're not putting pride in their work, they're not trying hard enough. They're not even doesn't they're just barely doing enough to get by. And things like this are our thoughts.

And what I'm talking about is the opposite. People start acting like they're invested, like they care, like they, like they want to do better. Okay. You can almost see it in their paces because people become less guarded, they become more friendly, they just kind of lighten up, they're a little more energetic. But when people start to feel safer through this psychological safety and through the judge the work protect the person, they they start trying harder.

Increased Employee Engagement and Communication

Okay, it just seems like that they're really, that you can you can notice a change in how people start to show up. They communicate more. Okay. They're more open about what's happening. They're more they're more apt to communicate things that are going wrong. They're more apt to communicate ideas and make recommendations. They're more apt to get clear on assumptions that they're making because they feel valued, okay, and not under scrutiny that if they have a bad idea or if they screw up, that they're gonna be deemed as not capable, or you know, it's gonna mean something about who they are, then they're more likely to contribute.

Okay, they have more engagement and they work harder to get along. They have work harder to get better results. And the the thing is is that people just start presenting, they start showing up as people who care more. And as leaders, that's pretty.

If you're the one in charge, I mean it's just that's amazing. It's just so nice to be able to have people like, “Wow, who are you?” You know what I'm saying? Sometimes I think that I'm like, you you do actually care. And and really it's not. As leaders, the assumption that we're making that, you know, you just don't care. Usually we're wrong about that.

Usually there's a reason, and usually we we're not quote unquote the cause. People still do what they do and they're responsible for what they do, but we have a tremendous influence and we can help to create the environment. What that means is we can help people have feelings. Okay. We can't force them to think certain thoughts that's gonna cause them to feel a certain way, but we can we have a tremendous influence with the way that we relate and interact and by the by the rules of engagement that we set up, how we do things here.

Okay. Result number two, this is a big one, and it's called.

Less Defensiveness in the Workplace

Less defensiveness, okay. People just become less defensive. So let's just talk about defensiveness. I think we all know what it is, but defensive is expensive. Okay. I just made that up, but I think it's the first time I've heard it that I can recall. Defensive is expensive, okay?

And I'm telling you, it is. It kills productivity, it wastes time, it prevents learning. so here's what's happening when people are defensive. Let's just break down like what defensiveness is.

Okay. If I come to somebody or somebody comes to me, let's have somebody come to me in this example, and I'm the one that's doing something that isn't working. And somebody can, my leader comes to me and says, “Shane, what you're doing isn't working. We're going to need you to do it differently.”

Okay. Who comes to me is usually the leaders, usually talking about the work. Okay. They're not usually saying, “Hey, dipshit. You're doing it wrong, do it right.” Sometimes that's the case, but usually they're just like, “Hey, we need you to change what you're doing. This isn't personal.”

But they don't say it's not personal. They just some people handle feedback better than others, others and some people give feedback better than others. Feedback meaning, “Hey, we need you to change what you're doing.” Okay. Usually when people are doing great, we don't call that feedback. We call it praise or compliments or something like that.

Why People Become Defensive

So, but anyway, the leader's usually talking about the work, but what I hear, or the employee or the team member, or the person receiving the feedback, or the correction, or the improvement, or the training, even, usually what we hear is something totally different.

Usually we hear on the receiving end is, “Oh I don't know what I'm doing. They think I'm stupid. They don't think I'm good at my job. They don't value me. I'm in trouble. I might I might get fired. They're gonna write me up. They're gonna think this, they're gonna think that.”

We're always trying to control the narrative of what we think other people think about us at work because the stakes are so high, because it's our money.

And so we have all this internal thought going on about what all this means about us and how the other people are gonna think or perceive us and all the effect it's gonna have on us, and that's all we can think of. So then we just start defending ourselves.

And so what is it that we're actually defending? Think about that. What are you defending?

Are you defending the work? Because that's pretty hard to do because what you're doing wasn't working. How are you going to defend that? But sometimes we do it anyway. Okay. And it's not really because people are difficult, it's because what we're trying to defend is our value.

Okay. We're just trying to say, hey, am I still okay? Because I did that. And so in our own brain, this all this stuff just happens automatically. Most of it's not thought through. It's not intentional. Just automatically we just get defensive and fight back and we wanna hold and prove and defend our position and defend our worth, even though it's not being attacked.

Accountability Versus Excuses

So then we do things like when we think when you when we think our values under attack, we start blaming other people.

“Well, well I was told, well they told me, well I I didn't get that email. I didn't know.”

And then, you know, all the different reasons of why it had nothing to do with me that we're getting this poor result.

All these quote unquote reasons, there are all these excuses. Why? Because I can't look at the work myself because I think it's tied to my values. So my brain causes me to say, “Hey, it's not me, it's somebody else.”

And that's called not taking responsibility and not being accountable.

The Work Worth System creates the opportunity for people to objectively to be humble, to use humility. Okay. What that means, we have people don't really understand that word. What it means is the openness and the willingness to be teachable, to look at yourself and not make what you've done mean that you're an idiot and that you suck, but to look at what you're doing and say, I can improve this. How would I be able to do that? Please help me because I want to, you know, participate in a better solution than what we're getting right here.

The worth work system creates the opportunity for people to objectively look at their work, okay, without it making making it mean something about themselves, about the person.

Okay. That when people can objectively look at the work, they're open to change it and move forward and have progress towards a better result in the future.

When people are defensive, the reason it costs so much time and money is because people talk about other people. That causes all these people problems with drama and blaming and complaining and, and they're not accountable. And so if there, if it wasn't them, then there's nothing they can do for hell's sakes. You know, it's gotta be somebody else is gonna fix this problem. They did all they could do. Go talk to somebody else. You I mean, here I am, but it wasn't me.

Okay, so as the opposite being, what can I do in this situation? I'll talk more in that in a minute.

Creating a Culture of Psychological Safety

The the Worth Work System prepares people beforehand to receive correction feedback. Okay. Because one of the things that we do is we we let everybody know that we're all in this organization, we're all equal.

What that means is that I, whether it's the CEO or the owner, down to the guy that just got hired yesterday, sweeping the floor, we're all equal, equal. And we at the top, quote unquote top, we're we have a higher position in the company, but we don't have higher value.

Than anybody. We're all 100% equal. And we want you to know that. And we're going to treat you that way, regardless of what you do or don't do in this company. We're always going to have respect. And that is the key to the protect the person part.

Expect Problems and Pursue Improvement

And we also tell people that their work will never be perfect. Okay. It's not only that you're going to have miscommunication. We we set the expectation. Don't expect everything's going to roll well. Expect things are not going to go well.

You're not gonna understand it clearly. You're not gonna clearly understand the expectation. We're gonna have tons of communication breakdowns. You're gonna operate on incorrect assumptions. There's gonna be so many things that go wrong.

Expect it to be that way and expect it to be normal and expect when it happens to open it up and hopefully objectively look at it and work together to solve the problem to move forward rather than to look at ourselves and try blaming and being defensive.

Expecting Problems and Accepting Reality

Okay. There's always going to be problems, and people are going to do things wrong on purpose sometimes. And so is the leadership of the company. Okay. And I'm not talking about making mistakes. I'm talking about doing things wrong on purpose. Not to try to sabotage the company, but people, this is not said, but I recently I've talked about this from time to time. And that is that people do things wrong on purpose.

And you better get used to that fact if you're a human being. Okay. Because to say that, I accidentally had three extra cookies that weren't on my diet plan is ridiculous. You did that damn thing on purpose, and that doesn't have anything to do with your value as a person. Okay?

It's just something that you did that maybe if you recognize it and accept that it doesn't change your value, you'll have better odds of not doing it next time if that's not the way you want to live. People that rec that acknowledge this, that it doesn't change their value, do less of it.

And people that defend it and try to make up excuses and do all this and that and the other, it's damaging to their the way that they think about themselves and it doesn't work well. And there's it just kind of feeds itself and it gets more and more correction, feedback is normal, it's gonna happen a lot. Correction training, it's gonna this is gonna be an ongoing deal.

Preparing People to Receive Feedback

And then the other thing that we do is we preface correction and feedback.

As part of the system, we remind people before it happens that hey, if I'm coming to you and you're the ones that receive the feedback, I'm gonna preface it with, “Hey, just remember, I got you. I am with you. This is not about you as a person. We just want to look at some of the things that you're doing because we want to see if we can improve them or change them, not change you. Because you're a hundred percent the same as me. That's not what we're talking about, you or me. We're just talking about how you are doing things, the doing, the behavior. We want to change that and improve it. It doesn't have anything to do with you, your value, or your worth as a person, or the kind of person you are, or any of that. It doesn't have anything to do with your identity. We're just looking at the work.” That's the separation.

When we preface it, that was a long preface, it can be something as simple as, “Hey, just want you to know this isn't about you. This is just about this project,” or this is just about this activity, or this thing that you're doing that we want to change how you're doing. And we ask people to accept that openly, objectively, look at the work. And it's much more likely to happen with these ideas in place. And when we behave that way as their leaders.

Okay. Now, what we've done, we can't control how people think about it. But what we've done is we've given the best chance that people can consciously separate what they do with who they are, and they know because we're reminding them that we hold them in high regard.

And then that gives them the a better opportunity to be objective and teachable and humble and open and have this open mindset instead of this fixed mindset or blaming or defensiveness. Okay. Now they can learn and improve and progress instead of defend.

Defensiveness Creates Excuses

Defensiveness also equals excuses. Okay. People blame their training, they blame communication, they blame the circumstances, they blame the coworkers. They give thousands and thousands of reasons that are called excuses, most of them, if you're asking me.

The problem isn't the reasons. The problem is that none of that improves the result. Okay. When's when people what they're doing is people when they make excuses, they're trying to absolve themselves of responsibility because that they think that if that that it's their fault, or if they take responsibility for the problem, that it means they suck as a person somehow, that they're deficient, that something's wrong with them, that they're not good enough, or whatever.

And when people stop stop protecting their value because they because we hold it here and we all agree.

That this has nothing to do with your value. And so when you quit protecting your value, you can focus on improving the work. And that is a big deal, okay, because defensive is expensive. It's very expensive. Okay. It takes a lot of time and money.

Personal Responsibility and Ownership

Number three is the result of the Worth Work System, is more people assume take more personal responsibility and ownership in their work. Okay. Now, this is related to defensiveness. We've talked about it, but it deserves its own its own thing here because here's the thing about our personal responsibility.

People don't want to be wrong. Your brain automatically will go, I we want to be right. Okay. We want to think that we're doing right. And a lot of times that we do, sometimes it's just a communication issue.

And sometimes even when we do wrong and make those bad decisions, our brain will guide us to make up a bunch of reasons. We call them reasons, but they're most of the time they're just a bunch of excuses because we're trying to prove to ourselves and the rest of the world that we're okay. Okay, meaning that that nothing's wrong with this, that we're not deficient, that our value or our worth is still okay. Okay, that it's still in tact.

So if being wrong means something negative about me, then I don't want to have any part of that. It's not I want to try to avoid the responsibility, and that's where all the blame comes from. That's where all the excuse making comes from, and the Worth Work System.

Separates responsibility from the personal worth.

Now, I just want to be clear that accepting responsibility does not mean that you accept the blame. Okay. Accepting responsibility simply means it doesn't mean you're incompetent. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you screwed up. It doesn't mean that you're a failure.

It simply means that. In order to improve the result, there's something I can do. I can change something to get a better result. It's knowing that. That is personal responsibility.

The Question That Changes Everything

So the big question that we use, and I I I mean it's so simple, but I really got this clear to me when I interviewed Matt Pond for the Horsemanship Journey. And his question was, “What can I do? What can I do? In this situation, what can I do?”

To me, that is the essence of personal responsibility. It's looking at a problem, looking at a challenge, looking at a roadblock, looking at a setback, looking at something's not going the way we want it to, and asking that one question, “What can I do, in this to improve it?” Rather than all the other questions you can ask yourself or all the other statements you can make.

I wonder who did this, I wonder why this. I wish they wouldn't have done that. Well, if they wouldn't have done this, well, I wouldn't have done this if I the blah blah blah blah blah.

All this other stuff is a waste of time. You start asking yourself what you can do, and you start answering that, now you're moving now you're moving forward, you're making progress.

So that one question is personal responsibility and that changes everything. I use personal responsibility and ownership is basically the same thing. Okay. When I talk about personal responsibility and taking ownership, I'm talking about the same thing, just to be clear about language and definitions.

Reducing Workplace Conflict

Okay, there's one more rate major result. There's so many, actually there's many, many, many more results of the worth work system today. I'm only gonna give you one more, and that's result number four out of, I don't know, I haven't there's a lot. We'll just say that. Much more than the four that I'm talking about here today.

The fourth one is we have less conflict.

Now, conflict sometimes can be good because according to the Gottmans who are marriage and relationship people, I guess we'll call them experts, and I agree with this that the goal of conflict is understanding. So all conflict is not bad.

However, excessive conflict, and if we can reduce conflict. That the tension and the people friction is what I'm talking about. And the unwillingness to go for understanding and the unwillingness to go for resolution. I'm just talking about conflict that is not helpful.

And there's plenty of it in just about every workplace, including my own that I've been at. And I the Worth Work System, and it's I started it in my own company. It's my kind of my laboratory, reduces conflict significantly, measurably, okay. And that saves time and money. It saves money, saves companies money.

Conflicts come from a lot of places. One of the major places the conflict comes from is like I mentioned earlier, when because we want to control what other people think about us us. Okay. Now the stakes are high at work because it's my money.

Why Workplace Conflict Happens

It's my survival. It's my family. It's my mortgage. It's my payment. It's the, you know, it's my food. It's my rice bowl. It's it's it's it's so important that the stakes are high.

So in without even thinking automatically, I want to control. I want to always be perceived as capable of high performing, high achieving, of dependable of all the positive of having integrity of all the things that I think that would benefit me if other people thought about me. So I'm always trying to control that.

And that a lot of times is the source of a lot of the contr conflict. Okay, so people spend a an enormous amount of energy trying to control how other how we think.

How we think other people think about us, even though we have no clue of really knowing how that is, unless we ask them, which we don't most of the time.

So when we when we think somebody sees us in a negative way, that's usually the when the conflict begins.

Equal Value Creates Less Conflict

Okay. The the Worth Work System, where we upfront, we don't we we state it and we say that's how we do things, but we upfront state and teach that everybody's on equal ground. Okay.

Like I said, from the CEO and the company officers from the C suite down to the the guy that sweeps the floor at night. Okay. Everybody is at a hundred percent. Nobody's more valuable or less valuable. Okay?

Now the jobs are different, the pay is different, but that doesn't mean your value's different. And we treat people here that way. We treat the guy who just started at the bottom of the, of the that's brand new and has no experience, we treat him with the same respect and regard as we do the owner of the company or the CEO.

Okay. And if we really do that, if we really do that, okay, no more and no less, but everybody equally, if we always respect and regard people, and and people, the more that they see that, the more that they accept it, and the more that they believe it, the less conflict that you have.

That doesn't mean the less disagreement or any of that. It means the less conflict that is harmful conflict.

And people are gonna make mistakes in that, by the way, because well, we're human beings, that's why. So people are gonna people are gonna err, they're gonna be rude, they're gonna be disrespectful, they're gonna be judgmental sometimes, but here we work about not doing that ever.

Judge the Work, Protect the Person

But when we do, we have a system and a so it's upfront. Okay, we do not accept that kind of behavior, period.

And when it happens, because it will, when it happens, we require a process of making amends, making restitution, making an apology. It's can be very simple, it can be very quick, but it's a requirement if you're gonna work here.

That you fix this stuff because we don't talk bad about other people. We always respect and regard other, we always protect the person. That's what we do. That's it. That's judge the work, protect the person.

Okay. When, when leaders consistently demonstrate respect, employees become less concerned about defending themselves. you have less gossip, you have less rumors, and less unnecessary conflict.

Okay. And these are big things in companies. These four things, and I'm just getting started, but I'm only going to go through four today just for time.

These are four of many benefits.

Okay. People care more, people become less defensive. Defensive is expensive. We have people take more ownership and we we have less conflict.

All four of those things are huge time killers and money killers. Okay.

Better Culture, Better Profitability

And you know, here's the bottom line is is when we have better effectiveness, when we have less wasted time and more effectiveness, we have more profitability.

And we have a better experience for everybody in the company because here's the deal everybody from the guy that just started, like keep using this example of the new guy sweeping the floor at night and the CEO. Everybody from the top to the bottom, however long they've been there, their experience, what they get paid to do, it doesn't matter.

Everybody's there for one reason, and that is to increase the quality of their life. Okay. And if you're going to increase the quality of your life, you're going to want to have an environment, a culture, a workplace where you can go, where it's pleasant, where it's not there's not a lot of fear involved, and there's not a lot of it's gotta be a little peaceful.

You know what I'm saying? You use the word psychological safety, but it's, it's, it's peaceful. It's kind of you can be happy at work. You know, at least you have the chance to be happy because we've done the best to set up the framework to allow people to be as, as, as to operate the best they can in these circumstances because we respect human beings here all the same.

So we have that plus more profitability equals, hey, we get to take more home in our pockets and our bank account looks better, and that makes us feel more secure, and that gives helps us, you know, get the things that we want in our life.

So therefore, everybody has a little bit better life experience.

And that's why everybody from the bottom, everybody all the way is there for the same reason. And we can all get a little bit more of why we came if we all participate in the Worth Work System. Judge the work, protect the person.

Final Thoughts on the Worth Work System

These are just some of the benefits. There may be an I may do another episode and go through a whole nother series of why, because truly, the benefits are unbelievable. There are just so many more.

Okay. If you like to learn more about the Worth Work system or how to implement these ideas in your own company, in your own, own organization, in your own family, or you can reach out anytime to shanejacob.com.

I appreciate you being with us. Remember, my friends, your value is non-negotiable. Stay with me.

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How to Increase Employee Ownership and Reduce Workplace Conflict

The Results of the Worth Work System explains how business owners can reduce workplace conflict, improve employee accountability, increase ownership, and create stronger team engagement. Shane Jacob shares the core principle behind the Worth Work System, Judge the Work. Protect the Person., and explains how separating a person's worth from their performance helps employees become less defensive, more teachable, and more invested in better results. This episode is ideal for business owners looking to improve workplace culture, communication, accountability, and profitability.