You've heard it before.
Flatten the hierarchy.
Let the new guy run a meeting.
Call people by their first name instead of their title.
Do this, and your team will trust you more.
They'll perform better.
You've got people who could be doing more. You can see it. But they holdback. They don't speak up. They play it safe. And you're left wondering what it's going to take to get them to step up.
Here's what Shane says is really going on: your people aren't scared of your power. They're scared of losing your respect. They think if they make a bad call, it means something about who they are. So they don't take the risk. They don't bring you their best. They protect themselves instead.
Somebody has to be in charge. That's not a problem to fix. Letting someone chair a meeting they have no real say in doesn't change that. Everyone in the room still knows who's actually making the decisions. Shane calls it theater. It doesn't build trust. It just wastes everybody's time.
Shane's answer Doing the Opposite of What We Are Taught goes against the grain of what most leadership advice tells you. You don't need to make everyone equal in power. You need to prove that everyone is equal in value.
That means one thing, done over and over: judge the work, protect the person.
Somebody misses a deadline, you deal with the deadline. You don't decide they're a bad employee. You don't let it change how you see them. The work gets corrected. The person stays valued. Every time.
Do that long enough, and people stop hiding. They start bringing you their real effort, because they know a mistake isn't going to cost them your respect.
Shane's spent 30 years leading teams and training horses. He's also spent time in six county jails and prisons real power gradients, the kind most of us will never see up close. That experience, plus the research on what actually drives team performance, is where this episode comes from.
The idea underneath all of it is simple, and it's the same one behind Shane's Worth Work System: what you do doesn't change what you're worth. Not on your worst day at work, and not on anyone else's either.
If you're a business owner watching good people underperform and yo u can't figure out why, this episode gives you a place to start. Not with a new policy. With how you respond the next time someone on your team gets it wrong.
Reach out to book Shane Jacob for speaking or training.
Welcome to the Stable Workplace Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today, where we work on developing, creating workplaces for people to excel. From the depths of hell that way I created, from the depths of hell in a jail cell, depths of hell that I created, to the back of a horse, to the front of a stage.
My name's Shane Jacob, and I'm coming to you with my 30 years experience in leading teams, training horses, and being locked up in the Hooskow Crowbar Motel. You know what kind of bird doesn't fly, right? Just asking a jail bird.
Today we're talking about reducing power gradients, which kind of sounds complicated to me, but I'm here to make it simple and make some sense of all this. So, you know, as a leader, I think all of us are looking at our people and just saying, I want you to do more. I want you to, I need more responsibility, I need you to be better at what you're doing.
How can we improve the way that you perform here? And it can be pretty frustrating trying to get all that done, when you see people that you believe have the complete capacity, but yet they're not providing the results that you're hoping that they will. Trying to get people to do what you want them to, trying to control people, or horses. Pretty tough uphill battle you got going on there. You see people that aren't communicating well. You see, sometimes as leaders we feel like we can see the problem, but we can't fix it. You know, that's where sometimes the frustration could come from.
You see people that don't follow the system. They're just not applying themselves. And you wonder to yourself, why aren't you doing it? What incentive do I need to provide you to get people to improve their performance? And the reality is, well, people are complicated. You and I are pretty complicated individuals, along with every other human being.
Now, what we do know from some of Google's research is that psychological safety is a big thing, and it's also a big word, or set of words. And I've talked about psychological safety, and my definition, what it means according to me, is that people trust that they're safe from value judgment from the group that they're in. The group meaning their co-workers and their leaders, their team, their company, whatever the group is, that the people inside of it trust that they're safe from value judgment.
Trust that they're safe from value judgment. What does that mean? Value judgment meaning that because I do or don't do my work well, however I do my work, is how you value me. Okay. So, in other words, if I don't perform well, I'm not a very good person. So that's a value judgment. A value judgment is when we value people's worth, the kind of person they are, how important they are, how good they are. We judge people. We don't usually do this on purpose. It's more of something that just automatically happens because that's the way that we're trained to believe that we should value people, based on what they do, their behavior.
So if I make a really bad decision, that means I'm a bad person. If I do something wrong, then I'm a bad person, right? And that's how we kind of roll. And that is what people are afraid of. They're afraid of being judged and labeled, the kind of person that they are, or devalued because of what they do, even if they make a mistake or if they screw up at work, because there's so much at risk. I mean, seriously, it's your job, it's your money. You know what I'm saying? It's very important to people. They put a lot of weight on it. And so what they believe other people think about them, or how they judge or how they see them, becomes a very important thing.
Now, if I come into this group as the new guy, the new employee, and I feel like, hey, no matter what I do here, you guys don't think I suck as a human being, then I have a chance to be a superstar. That's part of psychological safety. It means that the trust is high, defensiveness is low, and I can engage more because I'm not afraid. I have less fear wrapped up in what I'm doing. So therefore I can contribute more, in so many ways. That's psychological safety. I feel safe from value judgment from the people I'm working with.
So how the hell do you get that? I mean, that sounds real nice, Shane, but how are you going to get that done? Okay, so one of the things that's come up, one of the ways, it's like, well, how do you accomplish this? And, how are you going to get people to believe that they're safe from value judgment? How in the hell are you going to go about convincing people that we're all equal here, that you're no better than them? Okay, how are you going to show them that every day, so that they believe it, so that they can come to work and kick ass for you? Okay, because that's what they'll do.
If they believe that everybody in this group is seen as the same, and we're all equal, okay, and that none of us are better than anybody else, even though we have different titles, make different amounts of money. We're not all the same, but we're the same when it comes to value. We're not all equal in our talents, and no, we're not all equal in our abilities or our positions or our salaries. We're not equal in so many things, but we are equal in our value before God and to each other in this group.
So that, you're like, again, that sounds very idealistic. Well, how in the hell are you going to convince somebody that you don't think that you're better than they are, if you're the leader? Okay, because that's the key. So one of the things that has been suggested, in people who study psychological safety, because it makes the most difference of anything when it comes to high performance, so the key is, how do you get people to do more of what you want them to do? How do you get them to be better? How do you get them to perform more and be all they can be when it comes to people on your team?
As the leader, what incentive are you going to give, how are you going to convince people of that, what you see, that they have so much more potential, and it'll be better if they use some of that potential? How are you going to make all that happen? Well, the research shows that psychological safety, if you can provide the environment, now you can't force people to think or feel a certain way, but if you give people the chance, if you lay the foundation so that they can at least have a chance to feel trust go up, to feel psychologically safe from value judgment, to feel like they fit in, to feel like there's less fear wrapped up in this whole work thing, so that they can be better, how do you go about doing that?
So the question, one of the things that's been suggested in helping to create psychological safety, is reducing power gradients.
Wonderful. What the hell's that? Power gradients, or leveling power gradients. So basically what that means is trying to convince the guy who just started yesterday, who's down there sweeping the warehouse, that he has as much power as the CEO. Okay, that's what that means. Trying to get everybody to think that nobody has more power, than the power gradient is, you know, not like you come in here and there's a hierarchy, and the king or the CEO's up there and the peasants, and all of us down here are sweeping the floor and plowing the fields.
The idea is that you reduce that, or you level the power gradients, and try to get people to think that everybody has the same amount of power. Okay, so some of the things that have been suggested in leveling or reducing power gradients, because, are this. So here, how do you do that? Here's how.
Some ideas that have been suggested to reduce power gradients. Number one is you let people, the new people, the less experienced people, the people in lower positions, starter positions, make more decisions. You call people by their name instead of their title. You let people run meetings or chair a meeting, even if they're not in charge. Okay, and you listen to people.
You create discussions and forums where you take in information. These are ideas to help reduce or level a power gradient. So you don't, when you come into the group, or you're in the group and you're in the group working, you don't feel so much less than everybody else. Now, here's what I think. Okay, there's some good ideas in this, okay? Because we should always listen to the people that are in the front lines. Of course, we should always listen to our people.
And we should do like Joe Caruso said, and that is to honor people's perspective, which means that I listen and I give it weight. I don't need to agree with it. I don't need to take the recommendation. I don't need to have it be right. You don't have to be right. I just listen and I take it into consideration. That's what Joe Caruso means by honoring people's perspective.
Okay, they have thoughts and they're important, and their input is important, whether we accept it as our new policy or if we implement their idea or not, we still want to hear and value what they have to say. We want to value what they have to say just because it's what they have to say. Okay, so listening to people is a good idea. Discussions, and I don't, here's one thing I don't agree with necessarily, and that is putting people in charge of meetings. To me that's just ridiculous, okay? That you're going to put somebody as the chair of a meeting so that they'll feel like they're important and they're a decision maker when they're not. To me, that sounds ridiculous. Okay, I don't know, that's what I think. And if you're the person that's getting, well, you can run the meeting, but remember you still can't make any decisions and we're not paying you anymore. So I don't know, maybe that helps. I don't think so.
Calling people by names, whatever, I guess so, nothing wrong with that, rather than using titles. So some of these things are, I'm saying that these are good ideas, but I think that reducing power gradients is missing the point. Because here's the thing: somebody has to be in charge. Okay, there's got to be a leader. That means somebody who has the authority and the responsibility to make the decisions. Okay, they're responsible for the results, they have the authority to make their decisions, and that is called the leader. And somebody's the leader, and we're not going to take their power away and try to give you more so everybody will feel equal. Somebody still is in charge around here. Okay, it's not like a free for all and everybody's totally equal. That's not the way it works.
So some of these implementation ideas of reducing power gradients, I'm saying that I believe that they're good ideas, but I think that reducing power gradients as a strategy to help create psychological safety is ridiculous, because that shouldn't be the goal, to make everybody of equal power. The goal should be to have everybody realize and trust that we're of equal value, not of equal authority, not of equal responsibility, and not of equal power when it comes to decision making and such stuff like that in this company, because we're not all going to be making the same decisions. Okay, we're not all, it's not a total democracy and we're going to put everything up for vote. You know, somebody is going to have, for a reason, hopefully for a good reason, the one that has the responsibility and the authority to make the decisions, and we don't want to change that.
I just think it's a little bit misguided. I think what we really want people to know, I think reducing power gradients is nonsense, okay? And I think what we really, really want people to know is that, hey, I'm just exactly like you, in that I'm going to make some bad decisions. I do it all the time, same as you. I do some amazing things, and I do some things that I'm really ashamed of, and sometimes I make bad decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I make mistakes, but sometimes I flat do things that are just bad decisions. They're just wrong, same as you. And I just want you to know that, on top of that, I value you 100%. I don't think I'm one ounce better than you at all. I think that we're totally equal.
And what we want to reduce is the value judgments that people place on themselves. And so, yeah, we want to say that, but we also want to behave that way. So how, some of the ways that we can behave that way to help people buy in, or believe, or have faith in and trust, because you can't just say it, like we talked about in another podcast, you have to live it.
So how do you live in order to believe, to have people believe, that we're of equal value around here? We're not of equal power, but we're of equal value. And that's the key. When people believe that it's an equal value deal, and we're only going to be judging the work, and you're not going to be valuing me plus or minus on what I do, then now I know, if I make a bad decision, I'm still safe in the group. Okay, if I give you a recommendation and you hate it, you don't hate me and think I'm an idiot. Okay, because you always respect me. So we hold people in high regard.
How do we do that? We show we're kind, we're respectful, we take, honoring people's perspective is part of this. We take their contribution, whether we accept it or agree with it or not, we take their perspective into consideration. Okay, these are a couple of the ways that we show people. We don't just say it, but we show people that we value them the same as ourselves. And you know, because again, what we want to equalize is value, not authority. We want to equalize people's humanity, not their job title, not how much money they make, their decision-making value, not their decision-making authority. We're not equalizing that. We are equalizing our value before God and before each other.
You don't have to say before God, if that's not good to say at work for you. But we acknowledge that we're all equal here when it comes to worth and value and importance as human beings. Okay, so we want to treat people like human beings. We're kind and respectful at all times. We listen, we honor their perspectives, and we want people to know that we're not better than them. Okay, we have to really operate that way, because we can say it and say it, but they won't believe it, they won't buy into it, they won't trust it, they still won't trust that they're safe from judgment, until we show a pattern of how we behave. Okay, and I'm giving you the ideas now.
Leveling power gradients, or, I think, for example, having them chair a meeting is just hocus pocus nonsense, to say, well, if you chair this meeting, that shows that you have as much power as I do, so I hope you feel better about working here now, and you know that I think you're amazing and your value's a hundred percent because I let you chair a meeting. I think that's ridiculous. Whoever should chair the meeting should chair the meeting. I'm not opposed to it. But using that as a strategy for people to believe that they are, that you're reducing or leveling a power gradient, I think is ridiculous. That's my personal thought on this. I just think it's theatrical nonsense, is what I think. Putting somebody in charge of a meeting that they're not in charge of. Somebody in that meeting's still the decision maker.
Okay, and somebody still in this company has to be the one to make the decisions, and that's the responsible person, not whoever you said can chair the meeting that day. That's my thoughts on this. Okay, what we want people to know is that at this company, we judge the work, we only judge the work, and we always protect the person. We always regard everybody here as 100% valuable. We always regard and protect the person's value, no matter what they do or don't do.
Which means, how we implement this is when the bad decisions come, and how we handle those, all those things that we deal with when we're just shaking our heads, we're mad, we're upset at how everything's going and what they did, we have to separate in our minds what the work is from that person, and always protect the person and only judge the work. Okay, this is how you actually get psychological safety.
You want to talk about a power gradient? Let me just tell you, earlier in this, when I was kind of starting the beginning introduction to this podcast, I talked about the hooscow, which is slang, or I don't know what it is, it's another word for the jail, or for prison, or behind bars, the crowbar motel, being locked up. And having been there too many times. Too many times, I'm not proud to say this, but I've been in four county jails and two separate prisons, all right? So I've been behind bars a little in my life. And I don't say that as a badge of honor, I assure you of that. Well, I say that because true power gradients are inside those kinds of establishments. And I think it's intentional to have a power gradient to where we're the powerful people, the guards and the people that run the show, and all the rest of you inmates, you're way down below us and you're going to stay down there.
Now that is a power gradient, okay, an extreme, probably, case of power gradient, that they don't want to level at all, in my experience that I've ever seen or heard of. Now that's a power gradient. And even there, okay, even there, which I'm saying, everywhere, so including there, if you have the power gradient, somebody has to be in charge. Okay, somebody has to be in charge of how we run this establishment, even if it's a prison. But that doesn't mean that we can't treat inmates as human beings, with respect, with human dignity, the same. I mean, we can practice that. It doesn't matter what organization we're talking about.
And I just went from your company or your family to a jailhouse or to a prison case situation. Same thing applies all the way through.
And how we increase the trust is, yes, we need to say it. We need to have a strategy. We need to have a way that we present to our group, to our company, to our team, to our department, of how we roll around here. This is what our culture is about. We need to state it. But more importantly, we need to follow up with how we act and how we actually treat people. Okay, and I'll tell you, I look at this as just contrary to our thinking. So if this seems like, what the hell are you talking about, Shane, that would be normal thinking. Because you and I have been taught that what we do determines our value. We've been taught that for our entire lives, and I've been around a while, all right? And so the more that we hear it and repeat it, the more we believe it, the more we accept it, and it just comes like factual, okay, that certain people are worth more, or they're better than others, okay, in some ways.
And we don't do this all on purpose. It's not always a conscious, intentional, purposeful thought. It's just the way that we automatically roll. It just happens. We're just around making judgments all the time, using people's behavior. We judge their value, okay, their worth as a human being. We judge the person based on their behavior. And that is normal.
And I, myself, I still, I know I've had a belief that what we do doesn't affect our value as a human being, for a while now, for a few years. Yet at the same time, even though I have worked on really strengthening and really living and believing that belief, I still, when I get around people that are like uber wealthy or in big, important positions, with famous people, or officials of this and that or the other, or whatever, I automatically feel less than. Okay, and so I have to manage my mind around that. I have to remind myself and I have to say, you know, that what they have compared to what I am, we're still the same value, we're still the same, okay. I have to put intention in it, because it's not automatic for me.
So the point here is that what I'm talking about takes work, takes effort, takes intentionality, it takes that purposeful thought, to say, hey, here's the bottom line for you, okay. If you want to get better results from your people, if you want to have less frustration, and, not all your frustration is going to disappear all of a sudden, okay, but if you want less frustration, and, proven, this is not just my idea, backed by research, that you will have the best performance, the number one factor is psychological safety, according to Project Aristotle, that Google did, in whatever, 2016 or something like that. Okay, that's going to be the number one thing that's going to affect how the people perform for you. Okay, the number one thing.
So how are you going to go about it? I would suggest not focusing on reducing or leveling power gradients and trying to convince everybody that they have the same amount of power around here. I would suggest that you change that a little bit to say, I'm going to try to get people to trust, to believe that I am the same as them when it comes to value. I'm the owner of the company, I'm the boss, I make the decisions, but yet at the same time, sometimes I make bad decisions, just like you. Sometimes I do things amazing and sometimes I do things that are just wrong, just a bad decision, just like you. Sometimes you will too. You know, I want to normalize bad decisions. Okay, and because bad decisions are going to happen. I'm not saying to go for it, that's the target goal, I'm just saying it's going to happen. So you might as well get ready for it and know that I accept that as part of this company.
Okay, I also accept the idea that when we recognize that, we do everything we can to not have the same thing happen again, because that's not what we're going for. What I'm talking about is when it does happen, what do we do with it? Okay, we want to normalize the idea that we're going to constantly be wanting to improve and do more. And sometimes for employees and for people on a team in a company, that can feel like no matter what they do is never good enough. So I want to have the open idea that says that we're going to constantly be improving.
And that we're going to celebrate as much as we can, and compliment and pat each other on the back as we go by, and make progress and celebrate our goals and our momentum, but it's never going to be done. It's not going to be mission accomplished. We're going to always be wanting to improve on everything that we're doing. So that needs to be an upfront expectation. Okay, this, the same way that things are going to go bad, they're just going to go bad some days. You're going to make bad decisions, and that's going to be the way it's going to be. And we're not going to judge you for it, we're going to judge the work. Okay, we're going to judge the work because that's why we're here. And if you do make bad decisions all the time, that doesn't mean that it's okay, that means you're going to have to go, if you keep doing that.
I'm just saying that the best way to make less bad decisions, and the best way to improve the work, is, part of this, is setting the expectation that I'm the same as you, and you're going to make mistakes, and I know that, we know that, as the leaders in this, and that's going to be okay, okay, because what I want you to know, as the people that I lead, is that I not only tell you that I'm not any better than you by one bit, okay, but I act that way. I act that way, and that includes when I'm frustrated. I always have respect and regard for everyone. We treat everybody well, regardless of their position or their title.
And you know what, my friends, you know where all this begins? Here's where it's going to happen, because nothing's going to happen unless it starts right here, inside of you. Inside of you, that's where it begins. Because the way you relate with yourself is the way that you relate with the world. And if you don't believe that you're a hundred percent valuable, a hundred percent worthy, that what you do doesn't affect your worth, then you're not going to get people to buy in very easily to the idea that what they do doesn't affect their worth. So it begins with us as leaders. It begins for us saying to ourselves, and having the strength, the power, the strength and power that comes from humility.
And humility is being able to openly look at ourselves and just say, hey, we're imperfect, and that's okay, because we're working on doing better and making better decisions all the time as we move along. And it's okay that we're not perfect, and that we not just make mistakes, but do things wrong sometimes. It has to begin here. We have to separate our own behavior from our value. And when we look at ourselves and say, I can't believe I did this, I'm such a, no, you're not an idiot, you just made a bad decision. That's called being a human being. You're perfect. Your value's perfect. Okay, your behavior's not perfect, of course it's not, you're a human, and that's how it rolls. Okay, we need to look at ourselves and fully accept ourselves, work towards fully accepting and forgiving ourselves, regardless of what we do or don't do. Okay.
And then all this leadership business, all the things that we hear and teach and preach, you know what it comes down to? I'll tell you what it comes down to. It comes down to love your neighbor. That's what it comes down to. And, you know, all these big words and this and that, really what it comes down to is treating other people the way that you want to be treated. It comes down to the golden rule, at the very core of it. Okay, that's the key.
Most importantly, for today, I want to leave you with this message, and that is that I hope you can fully come to know and believe, with all your heart and soul, that no matter what you do or don't do, or what's been done to you, nothing can change your perfect worth, your value. Your value is non-negotiable. Stay with me.
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Business owners looking to improve team performance often hear the same advice: flatten the hierarchy and reduce power gradients to build trust. In this episode of the Stable Workplace Podcast, Shane Jacob explains why that approach misses the real problem. Drawing on 30 years of leadership, team training, and personal experience with real power structures, Shane makes the case that employees don't need equal power  they need to trust that their worth isn't tied to their performance. The episode breaks down a simple, practical leadership shift: judge the work, protect the person. It's a must-listen for businessowners, executives, and HR leaders who want their teams to stop playing it safe and start performing at full capacity.
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