273 – 3 HUGE Mistakes When You Bring Someone On Your Team

John Over the last two decades, I’ve been on an insatiable quest to learn everything I can about leadership. What makes the best leaders so good? After running companies small and large over the last 20 years, today I speak on stages all across the world to audiences who are interested in that same question. My name is John Laurito. I’m your host, and I invite you to join me on this journey as we explore this very topic and what makes the best leader so good. Welcome to tomorrow’s leader. 

John All right. Welcome to today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader, where we dove deep into all things leader-related, related to leading yourself and leading others. I am John Laurito, your host today, yesterday, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. All righty. So I was reminded of the other day I was talking to somebody about the issue that I must share with you today. And I was reminded of a time I remember being at a conference in one of my prior in my prior roles. And this was a conference probably, I don’t know, 100, 150 people. 

John We were all leaders in some respect or another in some role. And I remember seeing this guy that was there, and I had actually seen him in different times, at different places, you know, on broadcast virtual meetings, in-person meetings. And this was a few months. And I’m just thinking to myself, I didn’t know who this person was. I’d never been introduced to the person. I never heard any introduction. And I asked some of my colleagues, some of their managing partners, and I said, Who is that guy over there? I keep seeing him around. And their response was, I don’t know. I was wondering the same thing. I’m like, But he’s been here for like three months. 

John And so I went to another person and I said, Hey, man, who is that person there? And he’s like, I don’t know. I, I’m not sure. I asked. It turned out like two or three other people. So it was, you know, half a dozen of us that had no idea who this person was. So at the next break, I went up to him. I said I’m sorry, man. My name’s John Laurito. What’s your name? I see you all over the place. This and that, he introduces himself. I said, Well, good to meet you. I don’t know why we haven’t met yet. I said, What’s your what did you just join here would come to join a couple of months ago. He said, You know, I joined a few months ago. I joined like I think it was three, three, and a half months prior. I said, Yeah, I’ve seen you around. 

John What do you do? What’s your role and where are you? And I forget exactly what the role was, but it was something, you know, you know, when you hear somebody’s title and you’re thinking, okay, it sounds like a big title, I still don’t understand what you do. It was like, you know, director of implementation and, you know, systems management. I don’t even know what it was, but it was something that was it was a role that it turned out I should absolutely have been aware of that this role existed, first of all, and secondly, absolutely known this individual. But I’ll get to that in a minute. So I ask and I’m like, so, okay. I had asked a few times, and I said, okay, I get it. What? So your title is this, but what do you actually do? And this person had a really tough time clarifying exactly what he does. 

John And, I finally figured out what the problem was. And we kind of both kinds of talked about this openly. I said, what is your like, what’s success for you if you’re here for a year and you’ve just absolutely crushed it and done really well, what’s happened? And I felt almost bad after asking that question because I think I really put him on the spot. He couldn’t answer the question. He didn’t know. He really couldn’t answer that question. And I don’t put that on him. I do partially because he should absolutely have asked that question. But I put that on the hiring leader. Right. So so to back up a little bit, here was somebody that came into the organization, a highly paid person, by the way. And we’re talking about not, you know, 50, 60 grand. We’re talking a couple of hundred grand. That was part of an organization that was to help support and drive results in the field. And I was running an organization, a region for this company. 

John So I was obviously one of the people this person should have been interacting with, number one, on a regular basis. Number two, I should have known who this person is three months in, and I should have known exactly what they do. Right. And it wasn’t just me, it was my other colleagues that had no idea. So it was just really a debacle. Now, this was going back a few years and not surprisingly, the person after a year, I think it was around that time period, ended up leaving. Now, I don’t know the circumstance, don’t know why exactly. All I know is they were there for a short period of time and then left. Now, this person was actually talented. 

John They were a good person. This was somebody that I think was a real asset to have as part of the organization and could have been. But the whole way they were brought into the organization was messed up totally. Just a disaster. I mean, a disaster. So here are the three key mistakes. This story and memory reminded me of this. And I think it’s so essential for you leaders that are out there and you’re bringing somebody into your organization, whatever level it is. Here are three mistakes I see the leaders make all the. Time, sometimes only one of these, and sometimes, in this case, all three of them. 

John Number one is this person, any person coming into your organization has to be able to clearly define success. What does success look like? Not just short-term, but long-term? So I’m a big proponent on paint the picture of the path. So okay. If you’re bringing somebody into a mid-level leadership role, what is doing a great job going to look like? What is a year or two years down the road look like if they’ve knocked the ball out of the park and then what happens? So what? What? And you don’t have to. It’s not promissory you’re not, you know, overpromising, under-deliver. It’s okay to say, hey, listen, we’ve got to love this company is growing fast. We’re moving in a lot of different directions. We move quickly. 

John But I will tell you, what I’m looking for is somebody who comes in and knocks the ball out of the park, and here’s what that looks like in your role. And when you do that, there will be other opportunities because those are the people that I want to promote in this organization or give more responsibility to or have more influence and impact, allowing them to have more influence and impact within the organization. 

John Okay. So that’s number one, clearly defining. And if you’re on the other side of this and you’re coming into an organization right now, we’re about to ask the question and make sure you’re crystal clear on that. What does success look like if I’m doing a great job, not just the numbers, because that’s part of it, but what are the activities? What’s that? What’s the what are you hearing and seeing and feeling as a result of me being part of this organization? What are other people thinking? What’s happening? What kind of ripple effect, so to speak,? I have a cause that if you’re not clear on, I keep asking the question, force the leader to really clarify it because you’re doing him or her favor too, by asking the question that they may not have even thought of. 

John They may not have thought through it well enough. So number one is clearly defining success. Here’s the number two mistake that I see all the time as well is what? Who should they be? Networking with getting to know the organization. Who are the key players in the organization that they are going to want to build relationships with? Okay. So from the start, that person coming in should almost have like a diagram, a map of, okay, these are the people that I need to get to know really quickly because I’m going to be impacting their people or their organization. They’re going to be impacting me. Whatever the case may be, I need their help. I can leverage their expertise. You should have kind of a landscape of who are the people and where are their levels of expertise and what do you what would you be going to them for? There’s nothing worse. 

John It’s kind of like going, you know, it would be like going into, uh, think about that. My head would be like going into a new town, not knowing anything, not knowing where anything is. The gas station, food stores, nothing. And having no map, you have no ability to do that. You would have nothing, right? You have no ability to navigate. People should be coming in with a map, almost knowing everything about the organization, at least what impacts them. This person coming to the organization should have been interacting with me. Definitely. Right. Part of their job was to impact my people, my team, and my organization. Why would this person not already have been interacting with me? What were they waiting for? And not only me, but the other six people, and I’m sure many more that I had in the time that I did and talked to it just was was mind-boggling. 

John So the bottom line is people need to understand who are the people in the organization they need to go to and for what? Because part of what they need to do is know how to get stuff done. They need to be a resource broker in your organization. If you’ve got somebody selling something, they need to know where to go when they need problems or have problems with service or they have problems with delivery or they have problems with learning something or understanding something or design stuff, whatever the case may be. Lastly, here’s the biggest thing I see people do. This person should have been formally introduced in the right way. Okay. There was a total absence of a proper introduction. Now, I don’t know, maybe there was an email that came out. Now that’s not the right way to do it. 

John That’s a way to do it. But this person, you have to realize and sometimes you there’s nothing worse than somebody coming into the organization and knocking a proper introduction. It’s like going to a party and you don’t know anybody and you’re the only person there and nobody is introducing themselves. Nobody says anything. Number one, that person doesn’t feel welcome. Number two is there gets it comes to a point like I did where I assume I should know who this person is. I feel silly for not knowing that I missed something that I did. I had everybody else know this person. I don’t. So they start to lose their initiative and desire to go make the introduction and pave the way for that. So all kinds of really weird gaps on that, right? 

John It’s the bottom line is, people, there needs to be a proper introduction, not just the title titles are just BS in reality. And I’ll tell you, I used to incent people and motivate people with titles because it’s one of these things that mean a lot to people at cost. Nothing. You can give people a title, too, to reward them for an accomplishment and give them something that sounds bigger than in reality it is. Well, let me just tell you, titles are pretty meaningless because what happens oftentimes is these titles become so confusing. I don’t know what anybody does. And then I almost give up trying to figure out what somebody does. So it should be, hey, here’s this individual joining our organization. Here’s the background on them. Here’s some of the stuff you want to know about them. Here’s some of the stuff that’s really cool and important to realize why they’re part of this organization. Here’s their track record and here’s their background. 

John Okay? Right. I want to introduce them to their experience and expertise and some personal stuff so people can get to know them. And here’s what they’re going to be doing, right? It’s not just their title, it’s who they are, but what they are doing in the organization and how people should be engaging in interacting with them. That’s the right way to make an introduction. And then that person has doors open and should just aggressively get out there and build relationships. So anyway, that’s it. It came to my mind. I’m like, Yeah, so it was a disaster. And you know, I don’t know, maybe the person would have stayed and been a huge impact or because I know they went on to another company and did extremely well. 

John That company missed the mark because of this whole thing. They made these three critical mistakes. So leaders don’t do that. Okay, listen to what I’m talking about. It’s absolutely critical. And I see those mistakes made all the time. So I hope this was valuable for you. Reach out, and let me know. Let me know what you think. Right? Let me know. Other topics or ideas? Challenges. You’re having things you’d like to have to hear covered on this, and certainly your ideas for future guests on this show. 

John In the meantime, like, share, and subscribe, all that kind of good stuff. Go down below, give a five-star review and we’ll see you next time. Thanks. Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. For suggestions or inquiries about having me at your next event or personal coaching, reach me at John@johnlaurito.com. Thanks, lead on!