Hello, everyone. Welcome to Real Talk. Happy Monday. Happy Monday and happy, well, it's really the second day of February. Yes, it is. It is, which I cannot believe. I feel like, well, I feel like January was really long, but we're already through one month of the year. Right? Here we are. Like, no surprise, this happens every year, but here we are diving in. So... Yes, yes, happy Black History Month. Yes. And it's a hundred years of celebrating Black history. Which is quite amazing. It is, it is. A hundred years ago, it started as Negro Week and then eventually transitioned to Black History Month. But it's been a hundred years. I had no idea until I looked it up. And they also have different themes. So the theme obviously this year is around a hundred years of celebrating Black history, which is amazing. That is amazing. And I know today, like, we have a post that was going out because Black history is our history. Yes, it is. The second happened to also be our official Catalyst anniversary. Oh, yes, that too. Okay, hold on. Yeah, I was thinking about something different, but that's okay. Hold on. I know I'm going to blow everybody away with this in just a second. Here we go. Yay! We're in celebration mode. We are. I think that is definitely worth celebrating. So celebrate along with us, whoever is watching or if you're listening to us on the podcast. Yes, yes. And one day we'll definitely celebrate in person with you all. Maybe you and I will be in person too. our anniversary, but it's pretty amazing what we've built with Catalyst and just people around us that has supported us over these last four years. I mean, has just been amazing. Just the changes we've seen on how we talk about culture, how we talk about food safety culture, how we talk about not just culture, but people and people's behaviors and how that really links to the work that we do. You know, we've really with the people around us. They've helped us move this conversation forward that if we want to change culture, leaders must shift first. And that was something that wasn't part of the conversation five years ago. And it's been so much fun and hard And frustrating at times, but exciting and amazing. Yes. All at the same time working together to help elevate this aspect that does not get the needed attention it does in terms of how we work in the food industry. I feel like your panel at IPPE this year is like the perfect representation of what we do. Because a lot of people, especially in food safety, we think about food safety programs really when we think about food safety culture. We think about executing those programs or the outcomes of those programs. But we know that if you don't have the right people, the right leadership skills in place, programs are going to happen, right? They're not going to be executed the way that we need them to be. So I love it that you went to IPPE and talked about foreign material and connected that to culture. And that's just, I feel like that's the heart of what we do. We connect these technical aspects to people, to human behaviors, so that you can get the best possible outcomes from your programs, from your business. Yeah, I would even, you know, even raise it a level and say, you know, I love that there's even more conversation around risk management and enterprise risk management. And typically, you know, those are kind of tangent to food safety and quality. And usually it's more business related. Right. But I love how part of what we've done and there's a few others like Brian in the industry, Brian Armentrout, who's also helping elevate this conversation that risk management within an organization number one isn't just food safety and quality and two is about people yes it's culture it's leadership so i think we just talked about foreign material on itself you might have a really great program but if you can't execute upon it that's people yes this is the intersection that people are struggling with because you can get You can update your program. You can Six Sigma the heck out of it. You can do all those things, but if you don't people it with it, it's all gonna fall apart again. And many times we forget about it because, oh, go ahead. Oh, no, it's just my soapbox moment. Like, ah, the passion we have for this. And people forget about it. I think that's a part of the frustration part that might be there is that we forget that we have people that have their own lives, that are whole beings, right, trying to manage really programs that they don't know in and out. They just have this very specific part of it. And we forget that they exist or they're the ones that need to execute it or that there's gonna have some really great days. And then they're also gonna have some really bad days just as a human being. But we need our programs to still be executable, right? They still need to happen. They still need to happen even if a person doesn't necessarily feel their best that day. Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, if you if this is your first time coming to Real Talk, well, welcome to Real Talk by Catalyst Food Leaders. This is you can tell is where we like to have honest conversations about how to lead people forward in food because technical expertise won't get you there alone. So I'm Jill, and today's episode is tired of deciding everything or not at all. And in today, we're going to dive into that constant drain, which is like decision fatigue. Oh, yes. Or how this lack of authority just feels exhausting. And it feels like there are people who either make all the calls or we somehow provide them permission to make all the calls. But then yet we have people who we don't allow to make any calls. Yes. Yeah. And so we want to talk about kind of these spaces and understand what this does, how it weighs on us. But more importantly, how do we move forward from it? And many people find themselves in this position almost... I mean, you wake up one day and you're like, wow, why are these the only people that's making decisions? And these people over here are not making decisions. How do we get here? You can almost just wake up and say, ooh, we are now in this type of culture. And so many, many people are feeling this way, whether it's other people have to make the decision and you're like, why can't I? Or maybe now it's all on your plate and you're trying to figure out why do I have to make all of these decisions when I have a team, when I have support, when I have capable people around me? Yeah. Right. And we've seen teams that are kind of like they're hamstringed by this, where they've either been explicitly told like you don't you aren't allowed to make that decision or implicitly they've gotten this message that they aren't allowed or aren't able to like you said with extremely capable people and you would think, gosh, maybe that would be easy sometimes. I don't have to make any decisions, whew. Wipe my hands clean of that. And if I don't have to make decisions, then I'm also not accountable. Yeah, well, you all know that's not that easy. And when you're in a work environment where people can't make decisions, we stall. It's not lean. It's not productive. It's not effective. Yikes. Absolutely. You know, we try to move quickly, but we can't. Right. People are overworked and burnt out and words like I need to empower my people start coming up. And I'm sure we'll talk about it. I'm sure empowerment will come up in this conversation because the way that we look at empowerment and the way we try to help people think about it is that it's this transfer of power. to someone else. So you can't keep on to the power and empower other people. It's the same with decision making, right? Like you can't empower someone to make decisions, but still want to be a part of every single, you know, every single part, want to know all the details at that point, right? Just make the decision yourself, right? Versus micromanaging or ultimately holding on to the power when you need to transfer it to someone else. Yeah. And today we're not going to talk about like all the different types of decision making, but just how this weighs on people. Yeah. You know, consider that studies show that we make thirty five thousand decisions a day. Isn't that wild? It's nuts. Everything from should I turn the light on? Should I not turn the light What should I have for lunch? What should I not have for lunch? Should I be concerned about what's going down the line right now or should I just let it go? Is it a big deal or is it not a big deal? It's exhausting. It is. And I think more importantly, that amount of decision making actually depletes your brain's ability to constantly make these decisions. It's like, it's fatigue, right? It wears out the brain. And a lot of these decisions, we're not sitting there thinking about it for like multiple seconds, but your brain is still doing the work of making the decision. Like you said, and we were just talking about this before we jumped on, like we have post-it notes, like things we're going to do today. But even the decision of what to do first, they're all priorities. They all need to get done. you know in our head but it's like how are we actually going to prioritize what's what do i do first what i do second what i do right like those are all those are all decisions and when you think about thirty five thousand decisions a day yeah you want to think about how that could add up yeah and our brains only have so much bandwidth so when we think about how what type of decisions we're making right if we know that we're going to have big decisions coming up later in the day then we should probably take this the morning and like do a lot of nothing right i'm not going to do nothing but you know there's definitely a way to strategically position your day around decisions that you think that you're going to be eating too And that's real science, right? That's real science of how our body works is that our brain, it's really hard for our brain to stay super focused all day long because it gets fatigued from all the decisions. So you're absolutely right. Like if you have a big decision or a big meeting that's coming up, you don't want to schedule something in the morning that's overworking your brain because you're going to burn out by the time you have this important meeting. So is that your time to do some, you know, some some reflection time or to, you know, read more or to, you know, do something else that's low brain activity? Yeah. Not decision making so that you are ready and prepared. Yeah. And I think the part that's important around this is not only is it exhausting, our decision quality is reduced when we get tired. And so I don't know about you, but I certainly know I've had days where like the plant calls at nine a.m. They have an issue. Great. Let's power through that. We can do it. Oh, no. Another one at eleven. Oh, OK. We could do this team. Another one at two or four. And you're like, oh, my God, I just can't. Right. Yes. Yes. Because there's been so many things happening. So I don't know about you all, but I've had days like that where by the end of the day, I'm like, I could care less what's going out the door. I mean, I do, obviously. But I am so decision fatigued that by the end of the day, it's like that's where we need to know who's making decisions and then also have those strong programs around it so that we don't. create places where our team is getting fatigued because we haven't given them the tools to make decisions. Yes. Your thought process of when you get fatigued just reminds me of when I was a QE working on the line. When I got fatigued, I would say, just put it on hold. I'll think about it. Let me think about it. Put it on hold. I'll think about it. I'll make a decision by the end of the day. But that was my brain being tired. I needed more time to really think about it. Maybe I need to have different conversations to someone whose brain is working to say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. Am I ever making the right decision? But it's things like that where now I've kind of bogged down the system of putting product on hold. I was not overworked. My brain was not, was actually thinking it can make clear decisions. Maybe we didn't have to put a problem on hold. We could make a decision in that moment. Well, but this goes to kind of the, you know, part of the meat of what we're talking about today with when you're deciding everything, studies actually show that it reduces performance by twenty to thirty percent because this constant decision making really erodes judgment. Yeah. Even in people who are like, I feel really strong about my morals, ethical values, all of these things. Guess what? We all get worn down. Yeah. To different degrees. And so if you think about if you are the one who feels like you are deciding on everything, like the quality of your decisions and even your judgment around decisions is going to erode. And we see that in some clients that come to us, right? Because many times when we go into organizations and we help them with their culture and, you know, full on in or just parts of it, whatever part we're playing, they typically come to us because they're in some type of crisis. You know, they see a crisis either coming, which is like best case scenario is that it's pre-crisis, right? But many of our clients, right, they're in a moment where it's like we're losing people. You know, we don't have enough staff. People feel, you know, we can't lose the critical people we have. They're in this crisis mode. And we see leaders making decisions that maybe they wouldn't have made those same decisions if things were calmer or they weren't in a whirlwind. You know, they would actually lead differently if they did not have to make these decisions in what I call the whirlwind. where it's like you're kind of just in the whirlwind and it feels like you have to make decision, decision, decision, decision, decision. And when you talk about that statistics of it reduces performance by twenty to thirty percent, we see it with leaders because they are in this fatigue state of, wow, I am just tired. I want to work on bigger projects. I want to work on the innovation we're doing, but I can't because we're here in this in this chaos, in this crisis. yeah you know tia i'm wondering what you think of this but you know i think we're pretty aligned like when we see that we're like pause yes there is the reason behind all of that let's that's where you have to dive in right because that's where it's like is it because we have taken on too much with our workload is it because we haven't gotten the right tools to other people is it because we don't feel confident in people around us like That is such a prime moment, I think, to pause and be like, why do I feel like I have to make all the decisions here? Yes. And that's hard for people, right? That's really hard for people to pause. I mean, many times people try to speed us up, right? Like, oh, can we just skip over this part? Pause. Right, because we think if we're making decisions, like, oh, the impact, we're moving forward, but... Yeah, exactly. It reminds me of, you know, you... told me the story of you all had been working on your furnace, right? And something went out and the first time you just looked at the part that, oh, this one's broken, so let's replace that. But you didn't dive deep to figure out, well, why was that part even broken in the first place? That's really the pause to be able to say, huh, okay, this is what I see on the surface, but what's happening underneath? And one thing that I think is really unique to Catalyst is that that's what we do. We do that first to understand what is underneath the symptoms we're seeing. Is that really the root cause or are there things underneath it? And many times there are, because we just talked about how people typically don't look at human behavior and how that relates to the things that they're seeing. But when you go a layer under and you fix that, then things start falling into place. And then it's like, oh yeah, we should have been doing this all alone. And sometimes people are like, man, I should have seen that. But you're in the whirlwind. That's why it's easier with us. Like we're not working there every day. We don't have the pressures of the KPIs that people have put on us. We don't have that type of pressure. So we're able to look at it in a very different light to say, ooh, here are your root causes that you wanna pause and focus on. So that all the other stuff will stop piling up, will stop being an issue. Right. Will stop causing this fatigue that's already happening. Yeah. You know, I think I see this with very well-intentioned leaders. Oh, yes. Who recognize that they have a team that is stretched really thin. They want to help lighten the load. They want to help just move things forward. And so I see leaders that take this on and they're like, I'll make those decisions. I'm going to sit in those meetings. I'm going to do this. Love it. Love that you are willing to step in and help your team. But I also want to challenge you to pause and be like, why am I doing all of this? Right. How am I going to do all this knowing that there is decision fatigue? But really, they're like, like, why? What's below that that needs to be fixed so that you don't take all that on. Because if you're taking it all on, in my mind, there might be this first thought of like, do you not trust your people? Do you not feel they're qualified to make those? Do you feel like you're the only one who can? Are you the only one holding that information? I mean, there's a whole list of questions we could go through. But what are those things that are contributing to that so that you can really examine those to understand why you feel compelled to be in this spot where you have to make these decisions? And I like the way you talked about those questions and relating it to your team could be asking those questions to themselves. And imagine just as a leader, your team is thinking, wow, does my leader not feel like I'm capable? Does my leader feel like they have to watch over my shoulder? Does my leader not trust me? That just erodes relationships, which is the foundation of culture and how you want people to perform. So as a leader, because maybe you don't have those skills or it's hard to bring out those skills during chaos, during the whirlwind. That's why it's really important to have a coach, by the way. But if you don't and you're in that space, right, you are doing more harm than good by taking over those meetings, by sitting in, by doing it. You could be doing more harm than good to the culture. Yeah. And that's a really great place to be able to pause and be like, what's the story that that tells me this is the direction I want to go? What is the story I'm holding on to that makes me feel good about being in this space? Or maybe you don't feel great about being in that spot. But what is it that led you there? Because this is the moment where you can pause to say, what needs to be different? And I think, like you said, a lot of times that's really hard because we're feeling this pressure of, People need this right now. I need to go, go, go. But that is the value. And I know personally from my own experience, like having a coach to be like, I am so overwhelmed right now and I have this, this, and this. And having a partner to be like, let's go through a little bit of where you're at. The clarity that it brings and the grounding that it would bring for me was fantastic. Believe me, it also pointed out the things where I'm like, mm-hmm, yeah. Had I done something upstream a little bit differently, I might not be in this spot right now. But right now, how do I get grounded so that I can be ready for the next step and the next decision and the next support? I feel like as we talk about decision fatigue, it's almost like coaching just clears a path, right? Because just being able to reflect and being able to just You know, it's funny, like even with a coaching client, she's like, I feel like I'm just venting. But you need to get it out. Right. Like that. That's why we're here. That's why we're here to help you make sense of what's happening in your life. And it might feel like venting, but your brain needs to kind of get that out to make sense of it. Otherwise, it just like it just weighs on you. Yeah. And sometimes venting is the way that you can share so that people can be like, what's the story behind that? But when you hold it all in, your brain is working on its own, once again, trying to make decisions about what should I do with all this information in my head? And that, too, is exhausting. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think... When you talk about leaders trying to be in spaces of like, well, I'll just make this decision, right? I'll just go and sit. I'll do that. They think that if they make more decisions, if they're the ones that's doing that, they'll make more impact. But that is not true, right? You making more decisions does not equal more impact, does not equal better results, right? And like we talked about, it often just leads to friction. And conflict and loss of trust and, you know, all the foundations that you need in your organization to have the type of culture you want. Yeah. And so when I think about, like, how do you move past this? Yes, that's some of the stories. But the first thing you could do is when somebody comes to you for a decision, be like, what do you think? Mm hmm. That's an easy one, right? Super easy. What do you think? Mm hmm. It's one of those things that I think people would even be surprised. It's funny. If you're a leader out there and you're listening and someone has ever called you a micromanager or your team feels like you're micromanaging them, even if you feel like, I just want details, right? I just need these. If someone comes to you with something, just ask them, what do you think? And just watch their face. Watch the way they think about it. See, even if they're like, well, I don't know. I'm here to ask you. And tell them to think about it. Think about it a little bit and come back. Come back to me. Yeah. And this is a great coaching moment because they can provide a response and you can be like, well, what if you had chosen the other thing? I mean, like two simple questions just to have somebody think through, like, what do I think is right? And then also this moment of pause to be like, what if I would have chosen the opposite or the other? Well, where would that go? The way to help easily identify, were there opportunities to improve the decision-making quality and the thought process behind it? Yes. And it takes off. It's funny too, how the brain works. Cause it almost tricks your brain that you're not making decisions at all. You're just asking questions and you're exploring. So even, I mean, we talk about the art of coaching in our strategic leader and a piece of helping leaders become more like coaches is that I don't have to worry about making decisions. If I can really coach my team to get to the right space, right. To get to where they need to go and come up with the best possible solution for themselves. If I can get that, then I don't have to rely on my own decision making, right? Like I don't have to rely on all the things and I have to know all the things. I can ask those questions. What do you think? Well, what happens if you choose a different? Well, what do you think someone else would say about it, right? How does this relate to this over here? Now you're asking these different questions where in your brain, it's not like I got to make all these decisions. You're almost in this exploratory phase right this discovery phase of what paths could we go down it almost tricks the brain to not be as heavy when it comes to decision making right it um it's not kicking into the survival mode of gosh if i make the right one i survive but if i make the wrong decision i don't right it allows for this play you know it kind of reminds me i used to always coach my team that when they would go into meetings like their job was to come out with no action items And I don't mean that from a like, we're not collaborative, but so often, especially when you're in food safety and quality, it feels like you're the answer people. Like, oh, hey, can you get us that? Can you check on that? Can you give us that? And I would be like, super cool. Help people help themselves. Kind of the same thing here when we think about decisions. How do we help people help themselves through to the next step? I love that. I feel like that's like a little nugget. Coming out with no action items. It's so funny, like even when we go into organization and we watch meetings, I'm like the only one who came out of this meeting with action items was food safety and quality. Right. That says something. So I love it that you were like, hey, the goal is come out with no action items so that that you look at a different like that. I feel like I need to like write that one down. I'm like, that's I feel like that's an innovative way of, like you said, helping others. Yeah. Yeah. Just thinking about it from that standpoint. And sometimes, though, you do need to take things on, you know, for example, but since we were just talking about foreign material, one of the things that I've been sharing with clients lately is that when form material comes up, it doesn't have to be a new investigation every time, a new set of actions. That once again, as I shared at the beginning of the show, which was real, I mean, I went through a season at a meat company where it felt like we were having form material every couple hours. That creates fatigue, but it also pushed us to say, we need better tools for our team members. So in those moments, they have much more clear instructions what to do and where there are actual decision points yes so we made a library of what we called control plans so when we had a broken belt we did this when we had a gasket we did this when we had a broken shackle we did this when we had a this we did this yes and even though there were some common things across all of them they each had little nuances that by writing up this library made it so much easier for us to be consistent in what we did. Yes. But we could also do it across facilities. Yes. It was fantastic. And it didn't always have to be escalated. Right. Oh, man, the bottlenecks that those things create. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love that because, like you said, they're able to just look up, what do we do? I mean, when something happens, you're like, oh, no. Right? Like when you get form material, you're like, oh, no, what do we do? to have something readily available to say, this is what you do in those situations. You're not, you don't need your brain to come up with solutions, right? You don't need them to say, should I do this? Should I do that? You already know the path. You already know the approved path to go down. You know when to escalate, when not to escalate. It's like really having this authority to make decisions at the point of action, right? It's at the point of action. I feel like decisions that are being made farther away from the point of action, I feel like those are heavy. I feel like those are heavier. They are, but I also think it's in the same vein of this is why we have recall plans. This is why we practice trace events. This is why we have a crisis plan. Those are intended so we don't have to make so many decisions all the time. Right. We already have a plan. And I know those are kind of like the bigger overarching things, but you can apply those same concepts to the things that you encounter maybe every month, every week, every day. We used to tell our team before going through an audit, you know, all of what to do, just like your control plans, were written on the line. And so we would go around and say, hey, when your metal detection fails, because it's going to, it's going to fail when an auditor is here. What do you do? Right? And if you forget, and they typically say, this is what we do. We call the lab. We stop the line. You know, whatever it happens to be. And then I say, well, if you get flustered and you cannot remember that, what do you do? And they're like, it's written right here. And I'm like, exactly. It's right there. I want you to know it is right there to help you if you get flustered or, you know, I mean, anything can happen, right? Where you're just like, man, I can't remember what to do. It's right here for you. You don't have to remember everything. it's right here for you. And I think that that lifts some weight, right? It lifts weight off of people that like, I'm already nervous about what's happening here, but I know that I don't have to, I don't have to make a decision if something goes wrong. I already know what I'm supposed to do. Yeah. And I know there's this perception and I've been there too, where you're like, how could I predict what type of decisions would come up? And I think That goes back to having a strong sense of who we are and how we want to show up. Yes. Because when we use that as our North Star, then those decisions, even if they're not written down to that detail, become much easier. Yes. Agreed. Yes. Are we a company? I'm going to go back to foreign material because it's on my mind. Are we a company who we're like, well, yeah, it's for material, but it's not a food safety issue. We're going to let it go. Right. Or are you a company who's like for material is for material not going. Right. It sounds so perhaps minor, but I have sat in many rooms in places I've worked and with others and clients where those questions come up and you're like, Who are we going to be today? Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that's a really good point, Jill. I hadn't thought about it until you said it. It's like not knowing who you are, that adds even cloudiness to decision making. Because like you're saying, we've been in those rooms where it's like, well, oh, is this like this type of foreign material or this type of foreign material? It's like, OK, who are we? Who are we? Who do we want to be? Are we the type of people that have these conversations every time? Are we talking about people that know what we have, right? Can make a decision and move forward for a material should be in our product. We know that, right? Like that shouldn't be a part of the decision making, but it continues to show up because we, it's like, you haven't quite decided who you are as a team, as a group, as a leader, as an organization. Yeah. And that shows up. I mean, how many times have you produced something? You're like, it's a little bit out of spec on this thing. Are we releasing it or are we holding it? Ugh, the case packaging stickers have been put on crooked. Are we gonna redo them or are we gonna let them go out the door? There's so many examples where when people understand and know the culture, that this decision making becomes easier because it's a non-decision. Right, exactly. You know, I've been there, right? I've been there where it's like, we know that these cases, you know, a retailer is just going to see it. So we don't really care about them. So that's fine. Or these, oh, this is a consumer unit. We care about these. Let's have a deeper conversation. But just knowing that who we are. And you might say, well, we actually care the way they show up to a retailer. If that's who you are, that's who you are. And that's how you train your people. That's how you get there. But if you don't even know if this is good, this is bad, this is OK, this is not, then people are constantly making that decision. That's adding to the thirty five thousand decisions We may in a day when in reality, I don't know if we want our teams to really be thinking about, you know, a twisted sticker. You know, we want them to be able to say the sticker is twisted. We need to fix it. You know, we don't need to. Whichever one we want them to know and we want them to move on for it, not to spend the time to think about, right, this decision. We want them to think about like larger decisions, right? Not just those that we should know who we are. But here is like the essence of when we think about the challenges with culture. Because if we don't spend the time really examining these things, talking about them, pointing them out in the moments, when people don't have that clarity, that's what often contributes to all these questions that we have that require decision making. Right. But if we are strong in who we are, those things become, like we said, the non-decisions. right exactly exactly they don't count towards that thirty five thousand which i'm still kind of blown away by that number isn't that right yeah exactly but you know i think on the other side right we have like all these decisions but we also have people on the other side who are like i hands up that's not my decision to make i don't get to make those type of decisions yep not me right like you're you're i mean and we've seen this we've seen managers directors we've even worked with vps who are like That's not in my decision making role. We're like, if not you, who? I'm going to ask that same question at every level. So even if you're a technician and you're like, I don't know if I can release product from hold. Well, if not you, who? Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And again, are you closest to the action or is the decision maker farther away? Right. From the action. And then asking the question, why is that the case? Yeah, but it's mind blowing. There is a today study that said sixty two percent of managers said they lack the authority to make real decisions despite being responsible, being held responsible for people and outcomes. Sixty two percent. Yes. It's amazing why we feel like things aren't getting done right where we feel like things aren't progressing, that we that we are dealing with the same problems over and over. Yeah. But this is the price. I mean, I think about how many like projects or, you know, like goals for the next year or scorecards I've seen where they're like, oh, you own that. I'm like, I don't know that I. I do not have any authority when it comes to how that number got there. Yeah. And you're right. And when you think about it, it's not surprising. Because we run into that where, like you said, it's on your plate. Your name is beside it. But really, you have no real authority around it. And then or the other side of the person who does have the authority is giving it away, is saying, well, know well we can't do it or um i don't have a person for that or i think it should be you because and it's like you are the authority in this and you want to be involved but you don't necessarily want to make the decision like that makes me think about huh when we talk about like what's under the surface what's really going on within the organization that the person who clearly is a decision maker should have the authority right or The decision maker shouldn't have the authority. The authority should be with the person who should be making the decision, right? I'm following you on that path around there. You know, like when that is off, you have to look underneath. Why is this organization, why do people give up their authority, right? And say, no, I'm not the one to make the decision. I want Jill to do it, even though she has no decision-making authority here. Like, why is that the case? What do we celebrate here and reward? How do we reprimand? You know, like I started thinking about those things around culture when those things are not aligned. Yeah, well, clearly my judgy Jill is going to come out and be like, that probably means it's a culture of blame. Yes. Right. If I am unwilling or uneasy or uncertain about stepping in a role to make decisions, it's probably because I've seen what happens to people who've made decisions that somebody thought weren't appropriate. Bingo. Right. And that outcome, I'm like, as far away as I can be from that. When I see sixty two percent, I think, wow, I'm surprised it's actually not higher. True. Right. And, you know, we work with people that we ask like, why are you just not making these decisions? And they're like, I have been told not to. And what's funny though, is when people say this, been told by who? Well, that person is gone. You know, that person's been gone or that person, right. But it still lingers within the culture of, I was told not to do this. I had the email or I remember the conversation. I have the notes. I was told not to do that. So I won't. I will do nothing. One of my favorites is, that's above my pay grade. There definitely are things where you're like, that's not for a frontline team member to make that decision. We have not provided them the tools and everything to do that. But when somebody says that, I think, what is the story behind that? because that's a pretty loaded response it is it is it is like you said something else is going on in the culture that having people first of all connect pay grade with decision making especially in a moment that someone's asking them about decisions right because they said nope not me that's above that's above me you know I'm not I'm not going to get involved with that like it it gets you thinking about what's really happening in the culture. And like you said, who has made those decisions before and how was that handled? Yeah. And I think it also goes to when we think about job descriptions, often they are just the fluffy flowery responsible for, but they often lack the clarity on where does decision making begin and end. Yeah. Where is that authority? And that is a really important aspect of anyone's role. Versus like job descriptions. You know, we see they're just so overarching that really, I mean, all five job descriptions says we're responsible for operations of this area. But who is making the decisions? Right. Who really has the authority and what part of operations do I own? You know, and right now we just assume because of title and that type of stuff being an industry. But when you run into someone that's never done this role before or haven't led in your organization or is just new to that role, have been promoted up and now they know, right, they're in a different space and they don't know how to make decisions at this level. Like we haven't given them the tools to be able to be successful in their role. Right. You know, and I, I wonder how this even plays in because even when it comes to one accountability for, let's say a program, I think about, uh, I'm responsible for training. Well, good. And that means, does that mean I have the authority to be specific on like how I think it should look on how it should be implemented on the tools that I'm going to use? Or does it just mean I'm responsible to make sure people know, like this decision-making is so important and not only from. a process standpoint, but also budget. Oh, that's important. I'm always amazed at how many people are like, I'm in a manager director role and I have no authority to spend within this organization. Like not to spend. And I do that because it's, well, then how do you get the tools that you need to be able to do your role? And whether that's, well, gosh, I need more pens to make it up. Versus I want to show appreciation to a team member for going above and beyond on something. But that extends all the way out to like, do I have authority to bring in a software system that will revolutionize how we're doing our work today? These authority levels are really important. It is, it is. And it's so important. I feel like that this is like, this actually might be a really good real talk topic in the future is really thinking about like this decision maker and especially when it comes to like what you're saying around new equipment or, and And I say that as a real topic because it really is indicative of your culture. Organizations that have very strong cultures, it is clear on where does the money sit, who has the authority to spend the money, and who needs to be a part of that conversation. That is clear. And organizations that is not, it's like, You don't know who makes the decisions or the person who's making the decision. It's almost like, who are we? Sometimes that person is just making decisions based on their own viewpoint or their own perspective where they sit in the organization. And they really don't see the other functions that might need access to the money and where it sits. And I think about, OK, that leader decision fatigue. How are you going to be able to make all these decisions But then, like you said, the people that have the actual responsibility don't have the authority to actually spend the money that they need in order to onboard new software, in order to get development for their people. How many times have we seen that? I need development for my team, but I have to go way over here to ask for that money. I have to go way over here to kind of influence or, you know, make my case on why my team needs the type of development that I see happening right here in the feedback, right. That I'm getting around my team. It should be easy to turn that on. Yeah, I agree. That could be, that should be a whole nother show about types of decision-making and what that means. Because I think the part here is, you know, when we think about you're either making all the decisions or none of them, right. When you're in the role where you don't get to make decisions, like that too is exhausting. Yeah. It's something where it creates a lot of the like, well, I don't care attitude that people always say, I don't care. I don't have any, if I don't have any skin in the game, why should I care? Right. If I'm going to be, I'm going to be disengaged. I don't have to make any decisions. I just show up and you're going to tell me everything I need to do. I don't even have to engage. And think about when we consider One of my favorite questions is, do your team members all have the authority to stop the line for a food safety issue? We all know the right answer is yes. But what I think is really funny is we have seen cultures, I've been in cultures, where we tell people at the front lines and higher, you don't have to make any decisions all day. But oh, by the way, that one you have to. Right. Like, I can't really shut down the line. Right. This is like such a core piece, this like not making decisions or allowing people to when we think about the state of sometimes where we feel food safety is and quality within organizations. Yes. Oh, that is such a good point. Right. To tell people, oh, you can stop the line, which is like, I mean. Even in cultures where it's like, yeah, you can stop the line. You know, I've had temporary stop the line before. And everyone is like rallying around it. In order to do that, that means that person has to feel like they have some type of decision-making authority in some area. Because to tell your people that they don't have any decision-making know authority and that means they're like okay i don't and then you expect them to make one of the i mean most impactful decisions like stopping the line is one of the most impactful decisions you can do on a facility you're saying well you have that ultimate authority but you can't make the you can't make the decision to you know by a broom holder you know you can't yes i need a new basic tool that i can go to my local you know hardware store menards wherever home depot and buy it right i can't i can't do that but but i can stop the line Like that doesn't even that doesn't even make sense. Yeah. Those are incongruent expectations, which once again tells us a lot about a culture. Yes, it does. Because we have expectations, but yet we haven't been able to to bridge that gap of like where and how do we make other decisions that are potentially even at that same level. And if you're listening and you're like, I wonder if that's where we are. Organizations where you're not really giving the right decision making authority to people, high performers will actually leave your organization. So you will notice, wow, we have great people coming in or we might have a great person come in and eventually they all leave. That's a sign that you're not actually giving people the right decision making authority. right place the right time right yeah and and just notice because if all the big decisions have to float up and bottleneck through some a certain person or a certain level like notice what those are notice what those are because regardless if you're in the i make all the decisions or no decisions both of them drain your energy and can create just as much fatigue they do it is you know I think about the, you know, either you're in a decision making role and you're making too many or you're on this other side where you feel like you have no power at all. And that is that is. Well, honestly, a workplace that like I would be looking forward to coming to every day. It really is exhausting. I'm just showing up to make a check to get a check. I'm going home. You don't want to spend time there. You don't want to do extra work there. Right. You don't want those things. And you do. You feel exhausted. You feel tired. You feel like you are ultimately you don't feel valued. Right. You don't feel like you matter. Yeah. And I think this is where we've really worked hard the past few years to share this this narrative, which is that leadership isn't done alone. That leadership is about how do you build capacity within people? Because the more capacity you build within people means you have more capacity within your organization. I have not heard an organization yet say, oh, no, we don't want more capacity. However, I mean, I've seen them demonstrate perhaps the opposite on a regular basis. Right, right. But when we think about this, too many decisions or no decisions, like as a leader, you don't need to be in either of those camps and neither do your people. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's all about. you know, really mapping out, right? Like what are these core decisions that we need to make and where should that authority live and within our organization? And how do we, and you're right, it is about the shared system because many times we're not the only one that needs to be involved. But how do we, I like the way you talked about your control charts, right? Your systems where I'm sure there were multiple people that came together and said, this is what we do when we have this type of form material. This is what we do when we have this, this. But you made that decision and you put that out there so people can follow, right? So people can give feedback. So people can actually own their decisions that they're making. And that does something right to a culture, to a group, to people that are there. It makes them more confident. And they're making those decisions every day around foreign material. Hopefully not every day, but they're making it at some frequency around foreign material. Now it's like, okay, I'm already making these decisions. Yeah. I feel comfortable shutting the line down. Right. I feel comfortable stopping and saying something. I feel comfortable, you know, even the whole piece of like, you see someone walking around your facility, you don't know who they are. Right. Like how comfortable do your people know to be like, hi, can I help you? Yes. How can I help you? Right. And so, you know, consider this structured. So here's another stat for us. Structured decision frameworks reduce fatigue by as much as forty percent. Wow. When people know who make decisions, how they make decisions and when that fatigue goes away. Just a whole bunch of it. Yeah. Just that. Right. Having a structured decision framework. Mm hmm. Forty percent of that fatigue. And like you said, like that just opens capacity. Now we can do so much more because we are I mean, forty percent is a significant drop in fatigue. Is and how many how many times are we working with clients where they say, I'm so busy in the day to day stuff that I can't work on the systems that I know are really important? Yes. Well, that's because we are bogged down by either so many decisions or no decisions or. be pulled into things because we need to make decisions, but yet we could free up this cognitive space and ability and capacity to work on those bigger things if we can understand who's making decisions and provide tools to help do that. Right. And that's the pause, right? That's the pause to be like, okay, let's take a step back and let's look at where do we need to put in structured decision-making? frameworks. And you're not going to get there if you're just always in the whirlwind. You're always sitting in meetings and you're always doing this. You need to take that pause and say, okay, this stuff is not going away until I really develop something that's more structured for my team. And that takes pause. And one of the reasons why People hire us, right? Like why people bring on an external partner is because we can do some of that thinking for you, but we can also help create that space so that you can actually pause and stop and think. No matter, your brain might be saying, oh, I have all this other stuff, but we help you say you need to pause, right? And this is, you are able to reduce of fatigue if you just do these steps. Amazing. It's amazing. Yes. So if you're out there, here are three questions to help guide you down this path. So number one, where are you making too many decisions? Pause and think about that. Like where do you feel stuck waiting for someone else to act and make a decision? Yeah. And the last one, what's one decision you could delegate or one that you might need to take back? Ooh, I know often we don't think about that, but sometimes we do need to be like, I need I need to do that. And maybe it's a forever thing or maybe it's temporary. But these three questions can provide you gold mines of information. Once again, these are the type of things that we ask clients when we work with them so that we can identify where is it that we need to do the work that's underneath the scene. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And the foundation is really leadership, right? And leadership, really building these key leadership skills so that you don't find yourself in this space, right? Or find yourself of being in this space, right? You can really take these questions to think about, okay, where am I making these decisions, right? Who needs to be a part of? And then how do I ensure I don't end back up in this space, even as there's whirlwinds around us? Exactly. Yes. You know, and if you're out there and you're like, oh, how do I even start? Well, those questions start. But I'm also going to put up here our Leadership Summit is April eighth. It's a virtual six hour event. And I am pumped about our lineup, which is going to be released soon. But we have early bird registration open for our email subscribers where you can get fifty dollars off registration through February fourteenth. So use the QR code register. If you haven't already subscribed to our emails, subscribe. and you will get information about how to get the fifty dollars off yes this is a great lineup and people are going to talk about stories that are real whether it's about decision making whether it's unconscious bias whether it's how do i stop waiting for top leaders yes to help us with food safety culture or culture in general yes yes we're so over that And this theme is around reimagined leadership. And so even as we talk about, like, if you can just think about what kind of work life, home life, person could you be if you were able to show up differently, right? If you were able to eliminate forty percent of brain fatigue, right? If you were able to realign your people so that authority of decision making is where it should be. Like, just imagine what type of capacity you will have on your team, what type of results you can get, what your outcomes would be, how people will feel coming to work, right, and engaging with one another. That's what we want you to do this year is to really reimagine how you can show up differently in these spaces. And this summit is dedicated to giving you resources to do that. So we hope that you join us on April eighth. to celebrate and be a part of the conversation. Absolutely. Because as we said earlier, leadership is not a one person show. It was never meant to be because if you're leading and there's no one there, then you're just a party of one. And culture does not grow on its own. It takes nurturing. It takes planting seeds. It takes watering and sun and all the things. It takes intention. It takes intention. Yes. And if you're listening on our podcast, we'll make sure that we put it in the notes on how to get the fifty dollars off. You're just going to go to our website, callousfoodleaders.com and sign up for our email. You will have it. You also see details around the leadership summit. Absolutely. So that's today's real talk. If it sparked something for you, send this, like this, subscribe, share it. Because remember, leaders, when leaders grow, cultures change. And with that, I'm sure we'll talk to you throughout the week. But we will see you live again next Monday. Have a good week. Bye, everyone.
