75: Stop Talking. Start Leading: Why Great Leaders Ask Better Questions

If you're a growth-minded executive, founder, or team leader looking to build a high-trust, high-performance culture—this episode is for you.

Ken Proctor is an executive coach and former CEO who helps organizations turn middle managers into culture carriers. In this conversation, we unpack how leaders can drive accountability, engagement, and retention not by giving better answers—but by asking better questions.

You’ll learn:

• Why most companies break in the middle—and how to fix it
• The “three-question rule” that will transform how you listen and lead
• How to onboard team members in a way that builds loyalty from day one
• A simple framework for managing up, down, and across your organization

Whether you're coaching a team, scaling a business, or developing leaders—you’ll walk away with practical tools to lead with more curiosity, clarity, and impact.

🔊 Listen now and learn how to lead smarter—not just harder.

Ken's Website: https://kennethproctor.com/

Ken's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/proctorken/

executive coaching, leadership development, team accountability, coaching culture, middle managers, high-performing teams, leadership communication, onboarding systems, questions for leaders, leadership podcast, self-leadership, culture-building, lead yourself first, Ken Proctor, Sean Patton, No Limits Leadership

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:52)
Welcome to the No Limits Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Sean Patton, and I am so excited to have Ken Proctor with us today. He is a seasoned executive coach and leadership advisor with a rich background spanning from sales representative to CEO. Having worked with both small startups and Fortune 50 companies, Ken founded, scaled, and successfully sold his own manufacturing firm. As a Vistage Chair, he dedicates his expertise to guiding business owners and CEOs toward enhanced leadership and organizational excellence.

Ken is renowned for his direct approach, emphasizing the power of asking the right questions to drive accountability and growth. Today, he joins us to share his invaluable insights on leadership, coaching, and the art of inquiry. Welcome, Ken, I'm excited to have you on today.

Ken (01:34)
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here

Sean Patton (01:35)
You know, we got connected through a mutual connection, Jen Halpin, who I met in Houston at this awesome get together called the Good Human Growth Network. And we just hit it off immediately and she said, you need to talk to Ken and connected us. And I really enjoyed our conversation and I enrolled in your Art of the Questions course, which we're in the middle of and I thoroughly enjoyed. So I can attest to you have a different approach.

than I think a lot of, you have a unique perspective compared to, think a lot of sort of maybe your typical executive coach. Where did that approach come from? Where does that perspective derive from?

Ken (02:15)
Yeah, thank you. Great question. Really, where a lot of it comes from, Sean, are my own failures. look, I mean, if I whipped off my shirt and showed you all the shrapnel wounds from the mistakes that I've made, you would be more than impressed. So when I was a CEO, I would show up to a meeting, and the meeting would start when I arrived in the room. And I might be a few minutes late, but it would start and it would end when I said it was done.

And I would show up and I would talk and I would give instructions and I would challenge and I would push. And now what I learned is that you show up and shut up and you have an agenda and no agenda, no attenda. That's the bottom line. So you've got to like learn from your mistakes. And I talked entirely too much. I was guilty, right?

And you never learn anything when you're talking. You only learn when you listen and you ask questions. And I think I shared with you in the course that I am a recovering salesperson. And I would sell and sell and this is what we do and this is what we have and this is what we offer. And it was again, because of my own failure that I learned to solve, not sell. Big difference.

Sean Patton (03:29)
How can, you know, if, if, if leaders are listening right now and they are, they're listening to that story and they're like, crap, that's me. That's the culture I've created. Like, where do they start? How do you, how do you start to change that? Does it start just with the agenda and the meaning change from the top or is there more to the, to the developmental structure inside the company?

Ken (03:50)
It really starts with, well, first of all, if you're in business development, it starts with intentionality. And what I mean by that is you have to be intentional about, okay, let me ask questions to understand whether or not this is a good fit or not. Because Sean, I'm gonna tell you, people will listen to you if they like you, they buy from you if they trust you. And when you're telling them all about you and what you do and your services, whatever, that does very little to engender trust.

But if I asked you about some of your challenges and what specifically needs to be solved, that starts to engender trust because I'm going to make it about you. And let's be honest, people think about themselves morning, noon, and after dinner. And the average attention span of a human being is just under four seconds. I mean, thank you, TikTok, right? That's less than a goldfish. So if I'm not engaging you in making it about you, you're going to

Sean Patton (04:37)
Yeah.

Ken (04:42)
probably be visiting other planets within 60 seconds of me droning on. And so you ask the question, how do you sort of reset your mind? And it's basically this, okay? People care about themselves. Stop making it about you. That's it. And you have to think about that. And you have to be intentional about, let me find out what's going on with Sean. Let me understand what his challenges are instead of this is what I have.

You know, I tell this story of really when this came to pass, I've been married, next month it'll be 34 years. And on a very random Tuesday, I sent my wife a text and it said, what are the things that I do that make you feel most loved? That's what I said. Now, I fully expected to get back a question mark or a save that crap for your clients kind of a thing.

Sean Patton (05:19)
Wow, awesome.

Ken (05:35)
But she texted me back and she said, I love it when you get my car washed and filled with gas without me asking. Sean, 34 years of marriage, I didn't know that. You know why? I never asked. So what I challenge you and all your listeners to do is to start asking instead of talking. And that's where I would start. Go into any kind of conversation, whatever.

with something to learn instead of something to prove.

Sean Patton (06:03)
And so we're, working on that as for ourselves as leaders and, but we want to, you know, we want to shift the culture through the company, right? We want our, want to develop our junior leaders to kind of do the same. What does that look like in terms of, know, tactically, guess, right? Like what does that look like in terms of how do we, how do we get that? All right. Here's our initiative. We're, this is our change in culture. We're going to ask more. We're going to listen and here's how we're going to help you do it.

Ken (06:29)
Yeah, so with regard to middle management, typically I have a very strong feeling that companies break in the middle because nobody has leaned into middle management. And that is on the leadership team to be intentional about leaning into them. And what does any manager want to do? They want to, and let me be very clear about something. You manage tasks, you lead employees. A lot of people think, well, I manage employees. No, you lead employees. Okay.

So where does it start? It starts at the top, okay? And so if I am working with a manager that reports to me, and instead of me saying, you need to do this and this, and I need to hold you accountable to this, here's the first question I'm gonna ask. Sean, coach me to coach you. Coach me on how to coach you. Tell me what that looks like. What are the best ways to inspire, to influence, to hold you accountable?

Coach me to coach you and then stop talking. And with regard to accountability, which is, you know, every company's Achilles heel is like, ⁓ man, we can't seem to hold people accountable. Right, so you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna ask you, Sean, what is the best way to hold you accountable that feels supportive versus me micromanaging you? And then stop talking. And you're gonna tell me, right? Okay.

Great, and what should I do if I find you're not being accountable to what you said you would do? Have a direct conversation with me, write me up, point it out. Okay, got it. So to hold you accountable, I need to do A, B, and C, and then if that's not working, do D, and F. Yes. So then I have your commitment on that recipe, yes.

That's it. And Sean, you will understand for me, my sort of philosophy around coaching is ask for the cookie recipe, bake the cookies, serve the cookies back. And what are the chances Sean's going to say, I don't really care for these cookies. It's your recipe. Your fingerprints are all over this. So that's all I'm going to do. Now I might add a few walnuts or a little bit more sugar, a little bit.

But at the end of the day, I'm going to get your commitment that this is the recipe. And that's what I'm going to hold you to.

Sean Patton (08:33)
Yeah, I love that. Why do I work with clients? There's some things I, from my experience in the military, 14 years, 10 years as an officer that translate really well to the business world, civilian world, and some things that don't. But one of the things that really did was in our, we called it counseling. Now we call it sort of developmental coaching in businesses. But every, when we ever, we lined up the goals, right? What we're going to accomplish, who are you going to be?

It would always be, there's two columns and one was, what are you going to do? And then as the subordinate, and then how am going to support you? Like, so every, every goal had, it was a two way contract between the two. And as long as I uphold my end, you can uphold your end and you created it together. And I don't see that happen in most companies. It seems like this is a, it's very much a, a top down driven, you know, checklist of outcomes, right?

Ken (09:25)
I would agree with that. The best result you could possibly hope for is that when you have a collaborative, and I use that word often, a collaborative discussion on our desired outcome. Tell me what it is that you're looking for. I'll tell you what I'm looking for. And let's have a collaborative discussion on around how we get there. But if I say, you know, listen, you sit there, Sean, and I'm to spend the next 30 minutes telling me what you need to do.

It's gotta be both of us. We've gotta both be involved. You know, when I asked my wife that question, really I was sort of thinking that she's not gonna take me seriously, but she did. But shame on me, Sean, 34 years of marriage, I didn't know because I never asked. That's on me. And I apply that same thought process when I'm coaching leaders to their subordinates.

Sean Patton (10:10)
It sounds to me, you and that's what I love about what you're talking about. And I have a sim, I have the same belief really that, uh, I like to say that the path to becoming a leader is the path to becoming the greatest version of yourself. Um, because as you be, as you kind of step into that, uh, higher expectation and you, you'd have to develop your communication. It's about relationships and it's about setting the example. Um, and what I don't see, and I want to, I kind of want your opinion on this is.

expectation that the, you know, the middle managers or the senior leaders inside our company, part of my role is to develop you, not just to do the task, but to develop you as a human being. that a reasonable expectation of leaders inside companies?

Ken (10:52)
It is.

I often say that if you are a leader, your role, primary role is to create more leaders. Primary role is to create more leaders. And I will often ask the question and tell me what that looks like today. And, you know, as you know, I ask a lot of very challenging questions and I will often ask a question to a CEO who typically helps. What are your what's your single greatest challenge? What's causing 81 % of your stress?

how the hell do I find great people to work here? Wonderful. Why would a great person want to work here if you back out compensation? Sean, that's a tough question to answer, okay? And one of my clients does something at the end of every interview, which I think is really fascinating. If they make it all the way up to him because he's the CEO and he doesn't necessarily interview floor level employees, but if you're in management leadership,

The last question he asks are, what are your expectations of us with regard to development?

Often, the candidate has never been asked that before. But that is the mindset that you have to embrace if you want to create a culture of leaders. It's that mindset.

Sean Patton (12:03)
Should there be an expectation of senior leaders or senior management that if someone is in that leadership role, even wants to be in a leadership role, that they take ownership of their own personal development?

Ken (12:16)
It's great question. think it goes two ways. Very often I'm tasked with this question, hey Ken, Sean came to me, okay, and Sean said to me, hey, you know, it's really expensive out there and the price of groceries have gone up and my Netflix subscription and State Farm, I'm gonna need like four or $5,000 more a year to stay. And I'm often asked the question, how do you respond to that?

And I challenge the leader to say to the employee, need to rethink how you're asking me. You just made it about you. So here's what I would suggest. know, Sean, I would like to make more money. I would like to be put on the path to make more money. But to make more money, I have to offer the company more value. So could we have a collaborative discussion?

of what additional skills or responsibilities I could take on in the next 12 months that would allow me to be put on the path to being worth more to the company. Now, which do you think will resonate with the leader? But honestly, and when I've said that, the leaders will say to me, if somebody ever said that to me, I would literally fall down, tell you to call 911 and tell them to warm up the paddles. Well, that's right, okay?

Because it's not like I need more money, groceries are expensive, I understand that. But when you flip it around, Sean, and you make it collaborative, and I have to tell you, the leaders have to instill that type of behavior into their employees. They have to, because that just doesn't come naturally to most people. You know, my daughter, who is, she's out of college about three years, she's working for her first company.

and she works for a consulting company, she does talent acquisition. And it's sort of a small team, there are four people on the team, and one person resigned. And my daughter, proactively, sent her boss an email and said, I understand that Chris resigned, what could I be doing to help ease the burden of transition that would make your life a little easier while we look to fill this next role?

And her manager came to her and said, in 19 years of managing people, nobody's ever said that to me. Nobody. It's that way of thinking. And you have to think about how can I help you? How can I solve? How can I serve? First, and then you get what you want.

Sean Patton (14:34)
That is, yeah, that's such a fresh perspective. And you know, that's interesting because so much of what we hear, and I don't think this is new by the way, but you know, just where we're at in time is, the younger, you know, the Jen's, it was millennials, right? For years now it's Gen Z's or they're entitled. They feel like they're owed everything. They, you know, they ask, need, but that really flips it on its head. That, that sort of mentality.

And, know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was about these generations working together, because you're so focused and I think do such a great job with author communication and collaboration piece. And so how do you see the challenges there of now we have, let's just call it five, potentially five generations in one workforce with completely different backgrounds, completely different, maybe, traditional upbringings and, and the world is changing so fast. And how, how do we use.

communication and collaboration to maximize the sort of the diversity in experiences and make a well functioning team.

Ken (15:41)
Well, I think it starts by asking an employee basically from day one, tell me what it is that you want professionally. What do you want? Okay. You know, someday I'd like to be in the C-suite. Okay. What do you think you need to do? You need to do what skills do you need to learn? What is it that you need to do to take the first step on that path to the C-suite?

And how can I support you in that? Now, again, just not something that most people think about, okay? But if I am a leader or a manager, I am going to sit down with my employee on day one and talk to him about that. And then say, what are you willing to be held accountable? If you want to be in the C-suite in 10 years, 15 years, what are you willing to be held accountable to? And then how do you want me to handle it if I find you're not being accountable?

Because really what I want is I want you to be in the C-suite or I want to prepare you for your next role, whether it's in this company or another company. People, don't, you have to care about people. You have to tell them that you're interested in them, that you believe in them. You have to want better for them. And you know, one of the things that I deal with Sean all the time is people don't believe in themselves and

What I tend to give a lot of presentations on is a feeling of insignificance. And I get it because of the rise of social media. And I have to, I'm looking at Facebook, which by the way has 3.1 billion users, okay? And what Facebook is, it's a platform to feel significant. That's what it is. That's all it is. And that carries over into the workplace. How can I make you feel significant?

Sean Patton (17:14)
you

Ken (17:24)
by understanding what it is that you want and then helping you get there. If you do that, you will be loyal to me. You will be loyal to this company. That's how you reduce turnover and increase retention. But it starts with intentionality.

Sean Patton (17:36)
you

I love that because I think oftentimes as, as leaders, we make the false assumption that our perspective or our values or what we want, what motivates us is what other people, you know, have the same perspective, right? That same motivations. remember, ⁓ when I was, when I first told, I made the decision, I was going to get out of the military and I.

10 years as an officer, was getting ready to get pin major and I had been, uh, one, one blocks, obviously highest ranking block. Uh, you know, two commands at green beret teams and, know, it was on this path and my battalion commander at the time, the Colonel just could not understand. He's like, but you're on the path to get a battalion command. I'm like, I know he's like, I'm like, but that's, that's not really what I want, you know, for life. think I've done what I've come to do.

just, I could see the struggle in his face of just like, was not computing that someone who had the potential to be a battalion commander was on the path of that, wouldn't want that because that was what, that was his dream. And so, so often as leaders we get, we assume that that's what everyone that you said, everyone wants to be in the C-suite, everyone wants that. And maybe their, maybe their motivations are, are different. And, and how can you find that out? The art of inquiry, right?

Ken (18:46)
That's right.

You gotta ask them. And to your point about, and your story about your superior, that's what he wanted for you. Did he ever ask, and it's question I'm very fond of asking, Sean. So you're now 75 years old, and you're sitting on your couch, and you're saying, you know what, I really lived a good life. What needs to happen professionally for you be able to say that, and then stop talking? Okay?

Now, I coach leaders to a protocol, an onboarding protocol, because a person is making a decision as to how long they are staying at a company within the first three days of employment. First three days. And I remember I was dealing with one company, it's about a $30 million company, not too large. She has about 125 employees and she had some turnover.

You know, probably above average. And I asked her, walk me through your onboarding process, okay? And basically for the first three days, you know, watch a bunch of videos, read a bunch of manuals. like, my gosh, I'm uninspired, right? And so we reset her onboarding protocol. So let's say that you're coming to work at this company and you're starting on February 1st, okay?

One week before you are to start, in the mail, you will get a handwritten card from the CEO. And it's going to be addressed to the Patent Family. It's going to say, Dear Patent Family, we are so excited about Sean starting with our company. Please enjoy a meal on us with yours. And it has a $200 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory or something like that. Now, has anybody ever sent that to you, Sean?

Sean Patton (20:38)
No, I didn't even heard of the company doing that.

Ken (20:39)
Okay,

so you show up on day one thinking you've died and gone to heaven. Like, who does that? Okay, so for a $200 investment, what you just did was you bought somebody showing up on day one thinking, my gosh, I am so glad to be here. Okay, and there is a protocol. After week one, by the way, your laptop, your business cards, your cell phone, whatever, it's all set up. It's not go down to HR and say, no.

It's there, it's at your desk. And you get a tour and week one, so for the first week, I'm sorry, you go out to lunch every day with a different manager, every day, and their teams. Every day, week one. And at the end of week one, you meet with your manager and the manager asks very poignant questions, such as, what did you enjoy most about the first week? What did you enjoy least? What if anything came as a surprise to you?

And you do that on a Friday, assuming the person starts on a Monday, every Friday for the first four weeks. Now don't go out to lunch every Friday, or every week for the first four weeks. That's only the first week. But every Friday, there's a check-in. And then the second 30 days, it's every other Friday. And then the last 30 days, or the first 90 days, it's the last Friday of the month. What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you started the company? What do you see as the potential opportunities? What do you see as potential challenges for you?

I mean, it's very, very, very thorough. But again, what that person leaves thinking is, my gosh, I matter to this person. I matter. And that's what we all want. We all want to matter, right? That's the issue of insignificance. We just want to matter. know, Sean, and I think I said this in the art of the question, maybe I did.

I've been off Facebook for 10 and a half years and I'll tell you why. The last post that I read that kicked me off Facebook said, I just ate a great tasting banana. That's what it said. That's it, I'm out, I'm out. I cannot recapture that 1.5 seconds it took me to read that, okay? That people are so desperate for affirmation and recognition and significance.

that somebody posted about a banana.

I'm not part of that, but to me that presented an opportunity in coaching.

Sean Patton (22:56)
love that onboarding because it's the power of pre-framing an experience. You're setting up, and if you go into that, assuming the best, then you have that reticular activating system as they call it. You're gonna see the best. You're gonna see the good things. If you come in with looking for a bad, if it's a bad experience or you're hesitant,

then your mind's looking for the negative and you're just going to see the negative, right? Like we see what we're pre-framed to see and that's such a powerful, ⁓ it's not just, it's not just effective in itself, but the pre-frame with the card upfront and that first experience, I think, cause we're all going to make mistakes, right? Like as the, as they're, if they're a little long enough, they're going to have some bad experience. They're going to have a bad day. They're going to have some, but they'll overlook that. That won't be their focus if they've been pre-framed.

Ken (23:42)
Sure. Yep.

Sean Patton (23:48)
of how great this experience is going to be and how much that they're seeing, how much the company cares about them.

Ken (23:52)
That's exactly right. And Sean, if you were to get that card in the mail, how many people would you tell?

Okay, so what do think that says around marketing to get more good employees to this company? It's also a marketing piece. Whoever gets a card from the CEO with a $200 gift card before they start? Nobody.

Sean Patton (23:57)
A lot.

What do you go back?

Well, and then you're, yeah, then you're like pre-framing and branding, you you mentioned, think you said it in the beginning of the podcast about, know, why would someone, why would the best and brightest want to come work for you? Right. And it's like, man, you're, you're setting yourself up and like, well, you're going to have people beating down your door. You're to have talent beating down your door. And, uh, and that's what I love. That's why I'm so obsessed with, with leadership because I think it's such a, uh,

Ken (24:24)
That's right. That's right.

Sean Patton (24:41)
an untapped or unmaximized value, right? That goodwill inside of a company that if you make people, I love how you frame that, know, make them feel heard, make them feel seen. It's not, it's not just you're doing, you're doing, you're creating both fulfillment for human beings in the world, which is inherently good. And without spending money, you're increasing retention and you're increasing productivity. And so you're increasing profitability. So.

Fulfillment and profitability, if when leadership's done right, are not mutually exclusive, they're intrinsically linked.

Ken (25:15)
That's right. And know, I had a, largest client is a $1.2 billion company. Okay. And I'm called to coach the CEO, the CFO, the CCO, I mean the whole executive team. Right. And one of the challenges that they had was they had an unbelievably high percentage of turnover, like really high. Hmm. So this is before I've even been onboarded with them. I'm,

basically telling about what I do and understanding what they need. And they told me that number. And I said, OK, what percent of that number are you willing to admit is your fault?

I mean, Sean, the look on their faces was like, well, I mean, sometimes people leave for a better opportunity. Okay, did you know they were looking? Did you know that they were poachable? Yeah, I'm asking all these questions. And so I asked, how often are you having a one-to-one with the employees? How often do they manage doing that? Well, we give them annual reviews. Okay, so an annual review is not an annual review, it's a critique.

Okay, you should be having at least every other week conversations with the employees of what are you working at on? What's challenging to you? How can I better support you? How can I? Those are the kind of conversation you need to have every other week that managers do. And they started doing that with their direct reports and then their direct reports did it with their. And guess what happened to turnover? The numbers started going down because you're giving an employee an opportunity to feel.

heard and don't underestimate the value of that.

Sean Patton (26:48)
I love that you have that onboarding protocol. Do you have a sort of standard weekly one-to-one format that you help with your clients? What is a perfect weekly one-to-one look like?

Ken (26:57)
I do.

Yeah, it's, you know, what are the things you're working on? What's challenging you right now? What is your, you know, your month ahead, your quarter ahead, what does it look like? Are you on track or off track? I mean, everybody that I work with typically has, you know, scorecards, KPIs, things like that. Where are you on track? Where are you off track? What help do you need from us? You know, I mean, and it could be a 15 minute conversation. But...

When my clients email their managers or their employees about the one-to-one, it's always the first question is what would be the best use of our time? So I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to sort of hand the baton to you. You tell me what's the best use of our time before we go into these things.

Sean Patton (27:40)
I love that format. that was the making sure you understand the larger picture. So maybe you, let's just assume that you do the, you know, the perfect, amazing Ken Proctor onboarding process, right? They're onboard, they're killing it. They feel heard. We know what their goals are. We know what they want to do in the company. And then we're following that weekly format. When do we revisit the dreams, the visions, the goals, the motivation, the inspiration, the why are you here? What do you want out of it?

When you how often do you revisit that conversation?

Ken (28:09)
Yeah, I think that's twice a year. I really do. I think that's twice a year. And you know, I need to understand what do you want and how can I help you get there? Now, what happens if I am Sean's manager and what he wants, I don't think he's capable of getting there because he doesn't have the right skills, whatever. I am not going to drag you along and give you this idea that you are capable. I might say, I think we need to revisit this.

because I don't believe that you have the skill set to get X. That being said, you're really good at A, B, and C. Maybe we need to do a hard pivot. But I'm going to ask you and challenge you. I'm not going to mislead you. But I'm going to continually engage you. And this is another conversation that I had with my large client. They have this standard

form that they use to do annual reviews. Okay, it's very standard, right? And I challenged them. said, let's pretend that you have six people working for you. Instead of, and I want you to do this with one another, don't give them your standard review. You can only give them a three, a six, or a nine on a scale of one to 10. Okay? A three, a six, or a nine.

So George, do you have any threes? Yes, I have one three, okay? Is that three capable of becoming a six? If so, what's your plan to help transition them to a six? And if not, what's your plan to move them out? Do you have any sixes? Yes, and how many of those sixes can become nines? Three. What's the plan? Let's discuss the plan to get them two. I'm not saying that they're, you know, dismiss a six. The company needs sixes, okay?

But if you have sixes that are capable of becoming nines, you gotta help them get there. And if you have any nines, what's your anti-poaching strategy? How do you keep them engaged? Do they know they're a nine? So the company, this big company I'm telling you about, they have really embraced the three, six, nine concept, and they have that conversation in middle management, that they were constantly saying, okay, three, six or nine.

Sean Patton (30:11)
And is that, there's no forced distribution. you have to do a third, a third, a third, or something like that. It's just, if you've got all nines, you've got all nines. You've got all threes, you've got all threes.

Ken (30:17)
No!

No, you know, and what typically happens if somebody has a three, okay, and they say, yeah, George is a three, okay. So is George capable of becoming a six? No. So why is George still with us? And here's what I typically get, Sean. Look, I'm comparing George to an empty seat, and he's not great, but he's better than not having anybody in the seat. And what typically happens is the manager, if they replace George,

that work has to come down, like somebody else has to pick up the work while they find somebody else, and typically it's the manager, manager, I don't wanna do that, right? So I'm keep a low performer. That diminishes the culture quickly, is when you keep a low performer and you keep them hanging around, and everybody knows they're a low performer.

Sean Patton (31:01)
couldn't agree more. And, you it reminds me of a speech by Nick Saban where he says, know, says winners want to be around winners. You know, and they don't, and they're, they don't want to be around losers. And, that, you know, I saw that in the military, you look at one of the reasons, I think if you asked, there'd be a lot of reasons why you asked someone why they would, I mean, why in the heck would someone go through the hell that is special forces assessment and selection.

Ken (31:08)
True. It's true.

Sean Patton (31:25)
and then nearly two years of training to get a green beret just to go on a team, just to be the lowest tier guy on this 12 person team. Like why would anyone ever do that? And if you ask them almost to a person, it's because they want to be with other people who have gone through that. Like they want to be surrounded by other high performers. that just, they want to be around other winners, right?

Ken (31:42)
That's

exactly right. So you shared with me at the beginning, before the podcast started that you're a new father. Okay. You have a son, is that right? What's his name? Hudson. What are the chances that you and your wife held Hudson in your arms, looked at Hudson in the eyes and said, Hudson, someday I want you to grow up and be mediocre. Have you said that, Sean? Nobody says it.

Sean Patton (31:51)
Yes.

Hudson.

No, no, that was not the

thoughts from my head.

Ken (32:07)
Nobody

says that nobody wants to be mediocre. They want to be better. I don't think anybody wakes up and says, you know, I'm going to go into work today and I'm going to be below average. Nobody wakes up and thinks that way. So you as a manager have to help them if they are below average. They need to be made aware that they are below average, but this is what it's going to take to get you above the line and I'm here to support you.

And if you've tried that, doesn't work, you gotta move them out.

Sean Patton (32:34)
Right? Or some, reason I could think of that is just someone is so disengaged and disenfranchised because they've spoken up and nothing's been done about it or they're not being supported or they're not, you know, they're not being led correctly. And so then they're like, well, the hell with it. Right? That's, that's kind of the only, that's the only setting which I love, which kind of brings back to the earlier comment you made with your client of, you know, how much of this turnover are you willing to accept credit for?

Ken (33:01)
That's it. That's it. know, I had a conversation with the leader of a company that had a very high performing employee, but could not get to work on time, could not get there. Okay. And so he asked me to speak to her. Okay. So tell me what's going on. She goes, I'm just not a morning person. And she's constantly, you know, 10 minutes late. So 10 minutes late a day is 50 minutes a week.

you know, start doing the math, hour and a half a month, okay, know, times 12, it's a lot, right? And I challenged her, why aren't you, why are you choosing to come in late because being tardy is a choice. It's a choice. You could go to bed earlier or get up earlier. That's a choice. You're making a choice to be tardy, okay? And so,

She, yeah, you you're right, I should probably, and she got better for a week and then she defaulted into her own ways. But again, she's a high performer at work. Do you keep her? What do you think?

Sean Patton (34:00)
Man, I think there's a different approaches. I think that if she's a super high performer, maybe you say, well, why don't you stay coming in an hour late? Maybe work 10 to 6 if that's your hours, right? Be flexible.

Ken (34:13)
Yep, and we did that. And what time

do you think she came in? 10 past 10.

Sean Patton (34:18)
⁓ yeah.

Ken (34:19)
Okay, this

was a problem, okay? She was let go a couple weeks ago. Tough, but had to do it. You know, she wasn't self accountable. And what I tell people, Sean, all the time, the cavalry ain't coming. Like, you gotta do it on your own. And so if I owe Sean a report by noon on Wednesday,

and it's five o'clock and Sean emails me or texts me and says, where's the report? Julie hasn't sent me the data yet. I haven't gotten the data. So yeah, I don't have it for you. Okay. That's the wrong answer. That is the wrong answer. The only answer that's acceptable is, you know what, Sean? I told you noon on Wednesday, it's five o'clock. That's on me and I apologize. Let me tell you what I'm to do to make sure that never happens again. And by the way, you'll have it by seven.

That answer is the only answer I'm willing to accept. Don't have me come chasing you at five o'clock and say, where's the report? When you told me it would be there at noon. That's self accountability. So part of leadership is to teach self accountability if an employee doesn't have it. I'm not here to babysit.

Sean Patton (35:23)
Absolutely, the standards, the standard, right? That's what we used to say. How does this shift or does it shift with a company that is maybe a tech company and they're fully remote? are the unique challenges there?

Ken (35:26)
That's right.

You know, I think it comes down to productivity. I mean, when they're fully remote, you know, I always found that really hard to sort of keep a culture at a high level. But if you're fully remote, you have to be very clear on expectations. And let me tell you, clear is kind, unclear is unkind. So if I say, know, I need the report sometime next week, okay, and it's Thursday and I haven't given you, and you say, where's the report?

Well, you said sometime next week. you know, it's not the end of the week, right? There's still Friday, okay? So I think that you have to be very clear on expectations and let them know that as you are fully remote, if you are having a challenge or there's something going on productivity wise, it is incumbent upon you to come to me, not me to come to you. So expectations and accountability.

Sean Patton (36:24)
Yeah, super intentional, super clear. think that's, I agree. think that's, I think with leadership, what I've seen at least in my experience has been leadership in a, know, hybrid or remote environment. You have to be yes, like you mentioned clear and, ⁓ and hold the standard and also like you have to be so intentional, right? Because you don't have the, you don't have the water cooler. You don't have the passerby. You don't have the in-person meeting to like have the, have, you know, pull aside.

So have to be so intentional with your communication, I think, when you're.

Ken (36:53)
That's exactly right. And every one of my clients knows this Kenism by heart. What you tolerate, you encourage.

Every single client hears that. What you tolerate, you encourage. And if somebody is tolerating vis-a-vis encouraging something, bad behavior, not setting expectations, whatever, it's not changing. What you tolerate, you encourage. What you put up with, you end up with. And a lot of times, managers or leaders put up with bad behavior because, I'm too busy. Then don't expect it to change.

Sean Patton (37:23)
And so many people have not been coached, I think, have that hard conversation, right? To be direct, to challenge, to just avoid the discomfort of having an uncomfortable conversation.

Ken (37:38)
A lot of people avoid confrontation, okay? But as you will see in art of the question, when I have to have a hard conversation with you, I'm gonna go ahead, Sean, and I'm gonna put pillows around it. Let me explain what that means. Sean, I need to have a difficult conversation with you, and after I tell you where I'm coming from, I wanna hear your thoughts so that we can make this collaborative.

Okay, so now I've at least, I've rounded the sharp corners, so it's gonna be a difficult conversation, but you're ready for it. Because I've said, I wanna hear your thoughts around this. And then when we have that conversation and it's over, I'm gonna say to you exactly these words, I feel much better about our direction now. I'm gonna leave that conversation with an affirmation.

Most people don't do that and they leave the employee in the corner bloodied and bruised and bleeding from the mouth. And they can't understand why that person's not motivated the next day to come in and give extra effort.

Sean Patton (38:34)
Yeah.

you

I had to, as you wrap here, because man, I love this, man. I feel like you could turn this into a three hour Joe Rogan experience conversation, but I got a baby to get back to. I had a few quotes that I found on yours that I really wanted to get your deeper thoughts on. One of them is, said, will not know what you're fully capable of unless you are pushed and your default thought process is interrupted. How can we challenge our own

Ken (39:03)
That's right.

Sean Patton (39:06)
default thought process.

Ken (39:07)
You know, I go back to a book I read about a Navy SEAL who said that when you're really feeling like you're maxed out, you're actually only at about 40%. And I don't mind sharing with you, Sean, I intentionally look for ways to be pushed outside of my comfort zone, intentionally, because that's the only place that growth happens. So, you you've got to like disrupt the, well, yeah, I know this, it's comfortable, whatever. You want to grow, you've got to get outside of your comfort zone.

Sean Patton (39:34)
What are some, sort of some ways leaders can identify if they're in their comfort zone and how to get out of it.

Ken (39:39)
Okay, great question. So I'm going to ask you, if you're my employee, what is something, a project or something that you would take on if you were guaranteed you wouldn't fail? Okay, well I would do this, I would do more public speaking. Okay, so tell me why you haven't done that yet. And I want to push you Sean to try something that you never tried because

you will grow professionally and personally and you will be of more value to the company. You always have to make it the value to that person, not just the value to me.

Sean Patton (40:14)
Yeah, I love that. And man, I could go deep on that about, that was, we got the same talk. It's funny that, you know, that came from the Navy SEAL cause probably the toughest in the short term, like in an acute sense, the most physically and mentally tough course I ever did was a special forces combat diver qualification course. And

And you go through that and we go and people quit because the short version is you basically get to a point everyone does where you're drowning, right? And you have to pause and think through it. And you have, when you start drowning or start running out of air, when you have common to our doxy build up, you probably felt this before, right? Like your stomach starts to involuntarily compress, right? Your diaphragm starts to push and you feel panicked like you're gonna drown. And that's what most people shoot to the surface, right?

that same concept, which is funny, it came from the seals, because this thing we got taught was like, when that happens, you're only 40 % of the way there. If you push through that, that'll stop and you have 50 % more air there to get to.

Ken (41:13)
It's true.

And I have to, and maybe we close with a story. About 14 years ago, I changed the title in my family to Chief Memory Maker. That's my title. And we decided to go on one trip a year. We alternated between domestic and international. And I decided that as a family, we were gonna do one activity that pushes outside of our comfort zone. So back in 2018, we went to Paris and Zerma.

Switzerland. Now my daughter and my wife have a fear of heights. I'm like perfect. We are gonna go not hang gliding but it's hang gliding with like a parachute kind of thing whatever. like you jump with an instructor and you you go and you float down whatever right. And I didn't tell them that we were doing this until we got to the location. And I got so much pushback from my wife. And then when we went

Sean Patton (41:55)
Okay, yeah.

Ken (42:03)
And we got down, I said, how was it? And she said, after having children, it was the second best thing I've ever done. But if I said, OK, you're afraid of heights, that's OK. So now she's more willing to try something outside of her comfort zone because she knows that's where she'll grow. And that is so important, especially to instill in children.

Sean Patton (42:25)
I love that. Ken, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time here. I look forward to working with you more in the future. If people love this content and they want to hear more from you or get in contact with you, where should they go?

Ken (42:38)
Yeah, just go to my website is Kennethproctor.com and you can send me an email. It's Ken at Kennethproctor.com. And if you email me, you have my commitment, I will email you back.

Sean Patton (42:49)
There you go. Awesome. And I can attest to that because I emailed you and emailed me back and here we are. So, man, this has been so fun, Ken. I really appreciate your insights and the work you're doing to develop leaders throughout the country.

Ken (43:02)
Thank you, Sean, and thank you for having me.