Melody Wilding: Be honest. How many times have you thought I shouldn’t have to be telling my team this? They are adults. They should be able to manage their work themselves and follow instructions. It could be a missed deadline, a deliverable that was way under par, or having to repeat yourself for the third time about the same process.

All of these situations require holding people accountable, and accountability is such a crucial part of being a successful leader, yet nobody teaches you how to do it well, they just say you should do it. Well, the problem is most managers either avoid it entirely or they swing too far in the other direction.

They clamp down, they become a micromanager. Neither works. That’s why today I’m sitting down with Ashley Herd. She’s the founder of the Manager Method and author of the brand new book by the same name, and she’s here to talk with us about how to get people to follow through without feeling confrontational, without searing guilt that you’re punishing them and without you being the one who just picks up all the slack.

Now before launching her company, Ashley spent more than a decade leading global teams in the corporate world at companies like KFC, McKinsey, and she saw firsthand how much stress and burnout comes from unclear expectations, inconsistent feedback, and. Frankly, just avoiding saying the things that need to be said.

So she’s here today to share practical tools from her book around setting expectations, asking the right questions when something goes wrong and much more.

Ashley, welcome. I’m so excited to have you here. Thanks for joining me.

Ashley Herd: Thank you. So happy to be here. Melody, love the podcast. So very excited to be on it.

Melody Wilding: Yes. And we were just talking about how your first book is now out, The Manager Method. So tell us a little bit about the book. What are, what are you most excited about?

Ashley Herd: For any of anyone that’s written a book, I’m most excited that it’s come to life and I don’t have an opportunity to go through editing it for the 72nd thousandth time. But, but really what I’m most excited about is what I really take pride in is knowing that for a lot of people, your access to leadership resources will totally vary.

Like, there are people that are part of leadership training programs, ideally paid for by your organization, but plenty of people get resources wherever you can. And so take very seriously when I make, you know, posts or videos on social media. And so now putting those in one source, I’m really excited because I’ve probably learned the most in my life from, from reading books, sometimes listening to books, but really reading, reading books.

And so I’m really excited to hopefully give all of my tips to those who are, are really looking for them.

Melody Wilding: Yeah, and that was why I wanted to have you on the show is because I followed you on LinkedIn for a very long time, and what I’ve always loved about your content is you are, it’s relatable, it’s approachable, it is simplified in an elegant way. And I think that’s so important for the person listening who often feels like I’ve been dropped into this management or this leadership role, and there’s this unspoken expectation that I should just know how to do a lot of these things, and I feel like I missed that handbook or that class that they had one day when in fact, as you were saying in most organizations that just.

Doesn’t exist. So it’s wonderful you are giving people that literal method to follow.

Ashley Herd: Thank you. I, I love it. That’s simplify. I really like that. So I’m gonna have to write that down and, and go to Etsy it and have that made. So thank you very much, Melody.

Melody Wilding: You will have it in the transcript, so it has no problem.

Now, one area I wanna focus on for this discussion is one that comes up very often that I hear about from, from my readers and my audience. And that’s the topic of accountability and how do you hold people accountable as a manager. First, let’s talk about what does accountability mean to you?

Like let, let’s have a shared definition as we get into this discussion because I think there’s varying degrees of what it can look like or how people define it.

Ashley Herd: For me, I think accountability really is how you make sure something’s gonna get done and then make sure it actually got done. And that’s the hopefully elegant but simple way that I use to describe it. but I love talking about this and how other people might define it.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. And why do you think accountability is such an uncomfortable or difficult topic for managers? It feels like this kind of very loaded area.

Ashley Herd: It’s totally loaded. It’s something that, you know, when I’m giving talks, I try to keep it real. And so one of the things I sometimes bring up is the power of words, which is things like feedback. Like when you hear feedback, that generally sounds like it’s gonna be a bad thing coming in. Okay. But accountability, even more so.

So I’ll ask people whether they’re, they’re managers, team members across any industry. I say, if you’re hear the word accountability, how does that feel? And we’ll keep it PG people tend to say like, you tend to feel entrenched. And part of that is accountability, when people hear that, they tend to think, I’ve messed up, or my manager thinks I’m going to mess up. And as a manager it, it really feels loaded with that. Assuming your team’s gonna mess this up and so what are you gonna do? Are you just gonna end up doing it yourself? Or how do you, you know, get on your team if they’re not doing what they need to. I just think there’s a lot of that, and accountability.

What I think is really, really possible and really important is to turn accountability into a good thing. Because the gap I often see is, is managers telling people what’s expected of them. And, and, and truly that doesn’t happen as often as it should of people literally having base expectations. But managers, they may feel like, okay, great, I’ve, whether you’re delegating something or assigning someone new, you feel like, oh, I’ve told them what’s expected when it’s due. Move on with life. But there’s such a gap and if you’ve ever gone through this exercise, whether it’s a game of telephone or, parents with kids, if you’ve ever seen that exercise that people do, like maybe in third grade where you write down instructions for someone to do something like tie a shoe or make a peanut butter sandwich and you read it and you’re laughing ’cause there’s peanut butter over the counter ’cause you never mentioned like have the bread. Like that’s a very, that’s a very real exercise that plays out every day in every workplace. There’s not a conversation about, how’s this actually gonna get done? And so for accountability, to me, it’s getting real about that person. And as a manager, asking questions to make sure that you’re not making assumptions.

Because as you’re a manager and you’re giving someone something, you feel so great about this, maybe this is gonna help them develop. This is part of their plan. Well, the person on the other side of that conversation, often they hear that and they think, well, my manager, you know, they’re just trying to give me work off their plate.

Like, people often view things in such a negative way. A manager explaining why you’re, why you’re giving something, and then how they’re gonna do it, literally, it’s saying on Monday, okay, if I’m explaining this to you, where are you gonna be on Wednesday? Where would you like to be on Wednesday? And what’s gonna get in the way? In, in those questions, really can help so much in saying them in whatever way feels comfortable. But that helps people in advance to think about, okay, what’s expected? How am I actually gonna fit this into my day-to-day rather than just promise something in my one-on-one and then spiral myself back at my desk?

Melody Wilding: Yes. And, and just going back to the idea of this being so loaded, as you were saying, there’s, there’s that accusatory tone that sometimes the idea of accountability can have. And maybe even, indignance on both sides. Is the employee, it’s like, just let me do my job. Versus if you’re the leader, sometimes you think, well, my people are adults. They should be able to follow instructions and just, just follow through. Or, or even, I’ve had a lot of leaders who say, I wanna give them space and ownership, but at the same time, I’m accountable at the end of the day for certain results. So I need to make sure these things get done right. There’s, there’s all these tensions with this.

Now, i, I have to imagine that accountability operates at different levels, right? We, we talk a lot about culture and creating a culture of excellence and follow through and accountability all the the way down to some of the more micro steps you were talking about, of making sure the expectations are clear and, uh, how are you going to follow through on this?

So how does someone who is a manager, whether they’re they’re newer to it or they’ve been in management for a long time, how do they start instilling greater accountability?

Ashley Herd: Everything I do, and as I’ve written the book, I really try to make it relevant to those, whether you are aspiring to be a manager first day, or you’ve been managing for decades and happen to pick up a book to see if you could get any new tricks from this person that keeps popping up in my, my LinkedIn feed. But I think a lot of it is, is this idea.

I love the idea of the tension. I, I don’t love tension, but it’s very real. Because as I talk about, you know, explaining things to your team members as a manager, you do have that pressure and, and I often see the biggest traps that managers fall into, isn’t always doing and saying the wrong thing. Sometimes it is, but, but often it’s not having conversations because you think, okay, my teams are adults so I should be able to expect them to do things. Or if you’re running into challenges, you’re not talking about that to your own boss because of self-preservation. You don’t wanna look like an idiot or lose your job or any of those repercussions.

And so I think about establishing accountability. It’s really important to talk about that both to your team and then also Managing Up, which is, those that have read Melody’s book, you, she is the expert on that. So I’d, I’d love, I’d love your take on that, that as well. But it is recognizing that those tensions in between accountability is like, let’s say your own boss.

Let’s say you’re a manager and you’re in the situation where your own boss says something telling you to get it done. And maybe your own manager isn’t having the talking points that you have because you’re listening to this podcast. But some of that is thinking to yourself, okay. If I go and tell my team, I know this is gonna be an unmitigated disaster and not, this is all not possible. And so sometimes it’s pausing to think about that and saying, okay. How can I have this conversation? And so it’s opening up those conversations first with your own boss to say, okay, we need to get this done. These are some of the things my team is working on, and my thoughts are to shift this, to focus on this priority. it critical that this gets done like Thursday? Because this is something else we have going on on Thursday, and I just wanna make sure that, you know, I’m not saying yes to you right now in this meeting and going and telling my team. And either are rushed or they’re not getting it done well. And so this is how I’m thinking about it. And so sometimes it’s having that conversation to play your own, your plan out to your to your own boss. again. thinking about what people wanna hear. Because your boss just like you as a, as a manager, you’re likely hearing part of accountability is, you know, I don’t wanna sign things to my team members ’cause they just complain about it when I do or tell me all of their various problems.

Okay. But if your team can come to you and say things like, okay, but this, this is what’s happening. Some of the work would sacrifice, or have to work extra hours. And you thinking about, okay, is this a time when we can move things or is this a time when we just gotta work extra hours and, and how can we make that rare? But having those conversations as well with with your own, with your own boss and leader and opening those up is really, really important. And so I think accountability, to me, the biggest aspect is being realistic. Because so often, I mean, listening that have a to-do list that you made for yourself, that you’re like, I don’t know who this person, my, you know, 7:00 AM or 9:00 AM myself, thought that my 5:00 or 8:00 PM self was gonna be, but, but that plays out as well in every workplace. And so a lot of it is about being realistic and having those conversations, you know, up and down the organizational ladder, so to speak. But Melody any other t tips that you think about when you, like, I know this is your podcast, so I’m flipping it, but as you think about managing up and have written a wonderful book on it, but how do you think about accountability when it comes to upward management?

Melody Wilding: Oh, I thank you for, for turning the tables for allowing me to chime in on this. You know, I, I am often saying the phrase agreement is not the same as accountability. And that’s up the chain of command and down the chain of command. If you ask your boss, Hey, can you add me to that meeting? And they say, yes, sure, that’s agreement, right?

But accountability is, okay, what should I, if, if I don’t hear from you by Friday, is it okay if I follow up with you? Right. Or What would you like me to do at that point? Or with your team? Your team may sure may say, yes, I understand those are the expectations, but accountability is, okay, tell me what you are going to do differently next time now that we have, now that I’ve explained these other standards to you, what’s going to change going forward? Right. And it’s, it’s almost that kind of coaching, and as you were talking, the word negotiation came to my mind because as you were saying, sometimes it’s a negotiation of priorities of, I, I’m happy to be accountable to this, but in order to do that and be able to follow through, I need from you, Boss, to tell me what the key priority here is, or give me your sign off that I can deprioritize this other thing to get you what you want me to follow through on by the beginning of next month.

So that, that was what came to mind for me is that idea of negotiation. And that requires setting out a shared goal of we’re both trying to work towards the same result here. We’re both trying to make leadership happy or keep the client on board, retain them. Right. And that’s where the accountability is coming from. That we’re, we’re both trying to work towards that one solution and this sort of dialogue and back and forth is what’s going to help us get it there. It takes some of the animosity or adversarial nature out of it.

Ashley Herd: I love that, and thank

Yeah.

you. I, I flipped the script without, without giving a heads up that I might do that, but I just felt, as we talked.

Melody Wilding: I love it.

Ashley Herd: I love that example, and I, I think there can be such animosity and even those listening right now, if you’re thinking, okay, that’s great and I’d love for my team to come to me with this, you know, come to me in that way to say, okay, boss.

But I find my team either says yes, and then it turns out they’ve had all these questions, they didn’t bring them to me. Or on the flip side, it does feel like animosity. ’cause my team is coming at me in this unproductive way. so as a manager listening to this, I love that, that talking point from melody and, and the principle of agreement as non accountability.

And so I think my tip is, as you listen to this, is think about a meeting with your team. And in your next team meeting, especially if you feel like your team meetings are, you know, a bunch of one-on-ones like toddler parallel play, everyone’s going around talking about their individual things and everyone else is zoned out until it’s their time. But it’s the thing about this really to have this question to your team and say, if I were to say the word accountability. How does that sound? And again, if, if your team is honest with you what you want there, it probably is gonna have a negative way. If it’s not, then you’re already doing the right things. Keep doing them.

But it’s, it’s really natural. And so I think then. your team and giving that example, like the phrasing, from Melody to say, if I’m asking something of you, again, I’m not a wizard and I’m not, I’m not an octopus. I don’t have eight arms. And so I, I don’t know as much as I wish I did or that you may think that I do. And so if I’m giving you something and you’re thinking near self, how, you know, how are you giving, how am I supposed to do this? But how do you challenge and a, a challenge or have the conversation? I wouldn’t say challenge, I’d say how do you communicate back productively? And some of this is the way to say, okay, if I get that done, how’s that gonna play into these things? And if you give your team that coaching, and, and something I actually think could be a really helpful team topic to get ideas. Like, how would you, if, if I give you something and you can’t do it, how would you tell me and what are ways we can have that conversation? And, and that’s a, a really important skill to have with your team, but also others across your organization in building those relationships and, and honestly, outside of work in life. I, I just think there’s a lot of skills you, you can build around accountability in this conversation. So hopefully, hopefully Melody will have this nice ripple effect from this. Let us, let us know how it goes when you have these conversations.

Melody Wilding: Well, I love that idea of like, let, let’s just get the elephant out on the table of we’re going to disagree or we’re going to hit, a conflict where we can’t do two things at once. So how do we wanna handle that? Let’s talk about that. It also gives you a precedent to then call back on when that does happen.

And you could say, you know, we, we actually talked about this six months ago, and at that time we said we would approach it this way. Does that still sound how you wanna handle this? So, I love that idea. The, the person who is listening to this, we have a lot of folks that would consider themselves recovering people pleasers, overthinkers, they are servant leaders, perhaps to a fault, and they often get in their own way when it comes to setting clear expectations because they feel like they’re being nitpicky or demanding.

They feel like, well, if I want the slide, I want it formatted this way. That sounds kind of Prima Donna of me and I should give them runway. How have you coached or advised managers to be able to put some of those specific requests out without feeling like they’re, they’re being too much or they’re burdening their team or suffocating their independence?

Ashley Herd: One way I like to say first is, is to think about yourself. So as you are a people pleaser or, or you are recovering from that wherever you are in your, in your journey, but is to think about. How is that impacting you? Because all of us, you know, we are thinking about ourselves in ways when you’re a people pleaser, sometimes you’re not, you’re thinking about everybody else, but you’re feeling that way and you’re feeling super overwhelmed. And so some of this is to think about, okay, if, if I were out, if I took a vacation and I went somewhere and unexpectedly I had no cell service, like unlike the out of offices that all claim that you’re not having access. And it’s very hard to find those, those places these days. But, but to say my team had to, what would really matter?

And, and there’s, you know, if you’re gonna sit there and make a list for yourself, there’s probably 17 things that would be important beyond the formatting of the slide. And thinking about that. Sometimes it’s, it comes down to like, this is the way we do it. If my team member were to do it differently, it would damage their credibility in front of other leaders, other colleagues, customers, whoever that is. And it’s really important to recognize that and be able to talk to your team about that. Like, and to say like, am I gonna say you should do it this way, ’cause this is the way we do it. But if you don’t do it that way, sometimes it can, you know, if you don’t have the, the slide formatting or you don’t have the structure, that can have the implication.

Other times I really wanna focus on what, what matters. And so as a manager’s thinking, if you’re gonna take yourself out of that, what are the things that you’ve gotten into? So is it a focus on things like formatting above others or do you have your team, okay, send me that email before you send it to a client? Send, I wanna sit in in your meetings. So all of a sudden now everybody’s trying to accommodate your schedule. And what I often see is it’s really well intentioned. It comes from this idea, not advocating for the team as much as protecting your team. And while that’s important and it’s important to be mindful of that. I think thinking about that shift of what am I doing that’s protecting my team, but getting in the way. And what are ways I can advocate for them, including to explain to them why certain nitpicky things matter, and also where they have the ability to decide things. To then think about, okay, instead of trying to get involved and read every email that they send. What are the key principles? What am I looking out for and where have I seen things go wrong that I’ve changed or, or what are my preferences versus what’s really necessary? And some of those real questions to yourself I think can be helpful because at the end of the day, best manager is one that doesn’t feel like 24/7

You have to be on call or on edge in case your team sends something and you’re like, ah, that’s No, no, no, no, no. But to have those conversations at the outset.

Melody Wilding: For you and for them, right? You, you don’t need that stress and that hypervigilance and you, you don’t wanna suffocate them. So it, it’s a win-win in that way.

What you said is also a great reminder that accountability, however we define it, can look different depending on. Who the client is, what the project is, what stage it’s at, what type of deliverable we’re talking about. Because if a, let’s say you have a very high ticket, enterprise client who has just come on board, you may need much tighter accountability, uh, upfront while that, while that client is onboarding with your team versus once they’ve been with your organization for a year or two, right? You, you’ve sort of settled into norms and the team has a process to follow. Maybe the accountability isn’t as extreme or you’re not as on top of people, but I think that’s a good idea that it, it looks different for people depending on also, is this a newer team member or yeah. How how do you think about that? Different degrees of accountability depending on the situation.

Ashley Herd: I think it does really matter and it, it matters, you know, setting relationships at the outset. So, for example, if it’s new client or like, I loved your recent, fairly recent episode with Claude Silver, talking about how she’s really working to make things accessible to a barista or to a corporate executive.

And I feel the same way. I mean, I started Manager Method because I left, a job. I’d just recently gotten Head HR at the world’s largest consulting firm because I really felt like leadership training, they got was people that were restaurant managers at KFC that I’d supported, that they deserved the same type of training.

So I think in some of this, when you hear things like deliverable, it’s an idea of you are, whether it’s a barista or in restaurant or retail or or healthcare, where, you know, you may have a super busy shift, but the conversation you’re gonna have is with, is with a patient, a family member. You may be a barista and you are serving someone who’s had a terrible day and you can flip it. You may be a, be talking to a corporate executive who has a huge presence on LinkedIn, is very notable. And you think all the time in talking to your teams as well. One of the ways I like to say it is, you know, to the team members, as you have interactions with other people, sometimes it’s gonna be external clients, customers, patients. Sometimes it’s internal working with colleagues. One way I like to phrase it is, why does it matter, how you do your job and how you show up to your job? What are the things that you think that they expect and that can really help to shift belong. Because if you’re talking about a brand new enterprise client, I mean, that could be a pricey deal. And so you’re really balancing that accountability. And those are the places that like, yeah, you probably are gonna be looking at emails or involved in that.

But one thing to think about is even those senior leaders in enterprise organizations. They’re humans too. They were, they really, they really are. You know, hopefully that continues in this technology trend, but they, but they’re people. And so I’ve realized is, is now is I work with organizations from small organizations to enterprise and I’ve been so surprised at how human and conversational my relationships have been, including with those senior leaders enterprise. Because I’ll talk about things like, oh, I’m, loop this, this person in to make sure that they understand everything that, that you need. You know, I’m, I’m not. Trying to make it look like I’m the, the be all end all, but really having some of those human conversations, I think that can help your team as well to say, you know, no matter who they’re working with, they’re people. And so sometimes as you’re working with people that seem very important is to know they have all the real challenges that you do.

They wake up in the morning and are worried about how the day will go. They have life that’s happening. They have pressures themselves. And so to the extent. We can think about they feel, what they want, what we, how we can deliver them. At the end of the day, we wanna help them look, look good and be happy that they’re working with us.

It’s exactly the same if you’re coming across someone who’s coming into your, your coffee shop. They’re coming in to buy a pair of jeans and, to them, you are the chief marketing officer and CEO and CHRO. And so I think those are really helpful conversations to have with your team to help to set that expectation, no matter what it’s gonna look like, and, and know that your involvement is gonna be different depending on, on that.

Melody Wilding: That’s a really interesting lens that I’ve never thought about accountability through, because it, it creates more of an intrinsic motivation and sense of ownership to think, I, I love what you just said about to the person who comes in your shoe store. You are the chief marketing officer. And

Ashley Herd: if I

Melody Wilding: I was that person, I’d be like, oh, wow.

That just made me totally rethink my role in the organization. And now I feel, not an obligation, but I, I, I feel more. Like, I want to be a good representative. Right? And that instantly creates just more natural accountability. It, it just compels me to follow through more. So I love that idea. That’s fantastic.

I do wanna talk about though the, we, we’ve talked a lot about how do you create accountability, but let’s talk about when you don’t get accountability. This happens all the time where people will come to me and say, but I set the expectations. We said we would check in at these times. That time came and went. Or they sent me what they were supposed to send me, and it was not at all what I expected.

What do I do? What do I do when I have to give someone feedback that there’s that word again, or I have to enforce accountability or enforce consequences. How do you approach that?

Ashley Herd: One thing I think is really important is to start again, one with a recognition that you probably don’t know everything. And, and also knowing you may be thinking, oh, this is so hard. I hate these hard conversations. This is what I hate about being a manager, and this feels awful. And sometimes it, it varies.

One is to pause and think about how you’re approaching that conversation. Because most of us. you think about the, the, the other person on the other lines talking about how we shift situations, a lot of us shift that conversation based on what we know or what we think about that other person. You have what you may consider. Your least favorite person on the team, and you think, you know what? They’re unreliable. I knew this, you know, this is a, this is a trap. This is what’s finally gonna get them out the door. It’s, it’s, did once here in my life, someone say about their least favorite employee making a fairly minor mistake. Well, you know what, this should be the end because they got Al Capone on tax evasion. And I used that line in a video once because I thought in the moment I had a more direct response, but I thought, well, I, okay. That’s true.

But, but then if you think about your favorite employee, you may make all these excuses, oh, well, I know they have things going on. They’re super dependable. And so first is to think about like, how, how do you, how are you gonna approach the conversation? The other is to have the question, to have questions. And a lot of those are how, and what questions, um, is to think about instead of why, like, feels super personal. And you’re also not always gonna get the information that you need.

Because if you come to somebody and it’s like, why? Like why, why did you let it go down this way? But instead saying, know what? wrong that, that,

really led to this? Or could things have gone differently or you know, what were you thinking? Because sometimes it’s gonna be someone like, I messed up, I forgot.

I literally, this was the deadline and I didn’t properly write that down or remember it, and I just totally messed up. Other times if you’re not asking questions, you’re not giving them to tell the opportunity, because I’ve heard all the time and sometimes, you know, I was an employment lawyer before I, I got into hr, and so sometimes I saw things go down the path. The biggest gap I saw was had had a conversation because things just felt super unfair. Like a manager says like, yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna terminate this person’s employment, or we’re gonna put them on a performance plan, or take these really severe actions. When the person on the other end says, well, but I was waiting on this person and they didn’t do their part. But you’ve become so entrenched on what you’re gonna do that you think you can’t backtrack. And that’s where, again, I say most of the time you’re not getting into legal issues, but there’s a lot more people separate from going into a courtroom. a lot more people that it just feels super unfair or other people on the team see it.

And so a lot of this is asking questions and trying to get the understanding and knowing sometimes you’re gonna have to deliver a hard message. And a way to do that to explain what the implications are. I mean, for better and for worse. A lot of times people do their job and they think about it, they check the box, they’ve done their part, they move on with life. And so in a good way, it’s important to tell people how that work matters. Like in the positive accountability is the outset, you know, this is your piece, this is how it plays into the bigger piece. This is eventually the output of it, you know, however that looks with what they’re working on your organization.

That’s important for accountability. And on the flip, if they haven’t done it, talking about that, like, like for example, if you’re a manager and you told someone get something to you or ask them to get it to you by, by Wednesday midday and you’re waiting, they send it Friday at 6:59 PM and it’s kind of garbage. They’ve, but they’re like, oh, phew. At least I did it. Hopefully they won’t notice it’s late. then having the conversation on, on Monday and explaining, you know, this is, I need it for this Monday conversation. And so instead, I then had to work on the weekend and, and, you know, really redo it because I know you did it. if we’re gonna be honest, this, as you look at it, it’s probably not your absolute best effort. And so that’s, that’s the net. Like in the end, I did the presentation, I got it done. But let’s talk about what happened, whether you thought you could get it done or what led to it. Because, you know, it is important for, for all of us to make sure we understand what we’re doing this work for.

And so sometimes someone the, the result of it can help them

it matters. ’cause at the end of the day, that’s what you’re trying to do. And again, sometimes there’s gonna be issues and you do have to take harsher action. But try to have this. This, you know, way of it, feeling fair.

Even if someone’s upset or you know, they’re, they’re, they’re really, really frustrated. at least feel like it’s fair and any consequence seems like it was at least, you know, deserved. Or they, they had another shot.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. And speaking of consequences, where do you advise people to find that line of being, understanding, right? Mistakes happen, oversights life gets in the way that happens, but at what point is it okay, now we, we have to explore other consequences. What, are there any sort of stage gates for that that you advise people around?

Or what should a manager be looking for or thinking about to know when they should be escalating? And, the second part to that question is, how do you suggest they escalate? Are there certain consequences that you would go to first versus others?

Ashley Herd: First, I think a lot of the times, a lot less mistakes will happen if you talk about things in advance and if you don’t, say, if you make a mistake, you talk to your team. One of the things I, I talk about, including in the book, is to talk with your team and say, when you make a mistake. Then say, you know, when you make a mistake and, and say, I’m intentionally saying when, not if, because we’re all gonna make mistakes.

I have. One is to give an example of something that you did and also talk about how it felt, because these are all very real human emotions that often feel. And to say to your team, you know, I had this pit in my stomach. I didn’t wanna tell my boss. I felt awful. so long thinking about that before I told them. And, and I realize now as, as a manager, as a senior leader, whatever your role. I don’t want someone to spend one more second of having a pit in the stomach than it’s gonna take to fix it. And, and also being candid at the outset to say, you know, talk about what mistakes can look like and how we could possibly prevent them.

And no, things are still gonna happen, but let’s talk about that now. When we’re, when we’re in a room, we’re having, we’re having coffee, we’re we’re talking, let’s talk about that in advance. That’s actually way I’ve actually seen a lot less mistakes happen, is when you give scenarios and anticipate those and saying like, you know, our job is to try to have less mistakes.

So let’s talk about how to do that, but also when things happen and what those conversations can be like. Because when you paint that very real picture, when they happen again, people it more. I think again, questions are the number one thing I say to really get as full a picture as possible.

Second is to think about how fairly you’re treating somebody. Again, I’ve seen this on the, the legal lens when someone’s treating people differently than other people have been treated and, and that doesn’t tend to play well for that person and that eventually their lawyer and the judge and the jury and, and so that is one thing to be mindful of. But, but is to think about, is this fair.

Think about skill versus will, you know, I’m not a fan of these policies that say like three strikes or these, you know, you know, very generic policies like it. There are totally different approaches for different situations, and one mistake or error, it can be totally different from another, but to really think about, okay, is this an aspect of someone just flat out making a mistake? How can they repeat it in the future? Is this a situation that it’s so egregious that we can’t have them again? Or Okay, what are, sometimes what I’ve seen is someone makes a mistake, they become your best employee because they go do everything they can to never have that happen again. And so I, I really think trying to play that out in your mind, um, and have those conversations and, and if you’re in that moment and you’re struggling, like if you’re talking to somebody and you don’t know what the repercussion is, I mean, literally sometimes it’s saying to someone, you know, this is what happened.

We need to talk about, I have to think about this because this is, really, you know, really concerning and I, I need to just take some time and think about this. Again, the person on the other side of that conversation is probably gonna be incredibly stressed. And so I think those type of conversations are absolutely the, like, hopefully rare, minimum. A lot of them is explaining the consequences you can find that people can recover in, in, in more ways than you could possibly imagine.

Melody Wilding: What, what I hear from what you’re saying is assume positive intent. Assume that it’s a skill issue, for lack of a better word, that that, that it’s a skill gap that you can teach, or there’s some sort of process improvement you can put in place before you just jump to it being a will or a motivation, a willingness issue.

Is that right?

Ashley Herd: I think, I think that’s right because again, what I, when I’ve heard things and sometimes that’s talking to team members after the, after the fact or seeing things play out again, it often feels like this disproportionate issue or this fairness issue. I mean, I will never, ever, ever forget someone I know who.

This was back around the 2008 market. And so the job market, again, like people might feel now in, you know, in the ups and downs of things, finding a job was really hard. And this was an aspect of like, there was a team and the big boss was out, and everyone on the team left like an hour early. Everyone left.

But this person was the most junior person on the team. And that person was definitely not the favorite, was the least favorite. And that person ended up getting let go from their job. Just the feeling in that conversation. Again, what that person heard from every member of their life and people they didn’t know is, should you find a lawyer?

I mean, these are things that are, that it’s important to know, but, but this sense of just unfairness of like, other people are treated differently. I’m treated differently ’cause I’m lowest on the ladder. Or it just feels like they’re trying to get me out. And so just thinking about, is this fair, is this proportionate or disproportionate?

And, and what would you wanna have happen to you in that situation? And, and I think that can then help people think, okay, it doesn’t always mean just forgiving things and not having the conversation. It’s incredibly important to do that. But, but sometimes, especially when you have people that have, you’ve, you’ve spent time training, they’re part of your organization, especially if you’re gonna take those pretty severe consequences of removing someone’s job or a demotion or something, is, is really to think about that before you just make the decision that you feel like is just okay, natural, this is what, what we’re gonna do.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Ashley, great guidance here. Thank you so much. I love this conversation. I know it’s gonna help so many people. Where can they get the book and connect with you?

Ashley Herd: So if you go to managermethod.com, that’s my website, and you go to managermethod.com/book. And you can not only find all the places to get the book, but also free resources. So whether you’re reading this on your own or as like a book or team club, you can find those there. Um, you can find me at Manager Method on most social media platforms and certainly on LinkedIn.

I’m Ashley Herd.

Melody Wilding: Amazing. Thank you.

Ashley Herd: Thank you so much.