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Do you want to know the quickest way to tell if you or the people around you are high achievers,

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so high performers, people who you want to kind of take with you that will fly, you want to promote,

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you want to give the pay rises to. There is a very quick principle that you can use to do a litmus

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test on this, and it's called above the line thinking. Now, the people who sit above the line

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are the people who take ownership, acceptance, and responsibility over their own shit. Essentially,

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when things happen that are outside of our control, we decide to bring them internally and

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say, what could I have done about this? The people who sit below the line, below the line being blame,

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excuses and denial they will are people who it's not necessarily that they can't be high

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performers, it's just that right now they won't be operating at that level because we naturally fall

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into this like blame, excuses and denial zone. And in this episode, we're really going to explore

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this concept of ownership. And how do we get people if they are in the blame, excuses and

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denial? How do we coach them above it? Like how do we get them to take ownership and accountability

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of their work? And likewise just for us as well. We're going to do some real personal reflection

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on how we have to take control of our own shit in life. It's the only way we're going to achieve

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what we want to achieve. So welcome to the boardroom. This is the podcast where we just open

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the doors on all those conversations that happen at work that we so often think we shouldn't be a

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part of, or we're not supposed to be a part of. So Gallup, who do all the big surveys for the

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workplaces, recently dropped their study, which looked at the full recce of like 2025

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businesses and how engaged people are at work. And for the second year in a row, employee engagement

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has dropped. So it means that employees are just feeling more disengaged with work. They are just

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backing out. They don't care as much as they used to about hitting targets, about new initiatives,

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about giving their all at work. This is costing businesses a shit ton of money. It was estimated

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something like $10 trillion for the US economy alone. That drop in engagement is going to cost

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businesses across the US economy. So if you just think about your team, you may have a team of two.

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You may have a team of 200. You may have a team of 200,000. If every single one of those employees

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just drops their engagement by just a couple of percent, think about the day to day decisions that

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people are making. But the most important part of this research for me was that managers are over

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and over again, shown as the biggest lever as to whether or not your team will be engaged or not.

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So, I mean, I knew that I could tell you that it seems obvious to me, but apparently they had to

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spend millions of pounds doing this research to figure this out. It's not actually the company or

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the SLT that will decide whether or not a team is engaged. It is their direct exact manager. And

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if you just imagine like how much better, how much more efficient, how much more fulfilled and

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challenged a team would feel if all of them had brilliant managers. So what we're going to do

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throughout this episode is kind of move through. First of all, us taking accountability for

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ourselves because we have to do that. Our team will only do as we do. They will not do as we say.

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So we have to take accountability ourselves first, then all the way through to what if our team are

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letting us down on deadlines, on targets? They just don't seem to care. We're going to go through that.

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And exactly what I would do in that moment. In order to talk about ownership and accountability.

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We have to first look at its worst enemy. Blame. Blame is ownerships. Worst enemy. Blame is

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something happens. Maybe it's a client. Maybe it's a different team. Maybe it's the economy, the

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weather. Something happens that it's completely outside of your control. And instead of thinking,

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how do we take this on? How do we fix it together, we immediately go to blame and we say, oh, it was

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them. And therefore I am not going to be part of the solution because I have outsourced the

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problem and it is not my fault. And as you can probably feel, it's so much easier to do that. It

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kind of takes it away from us. It means we don't have to find the solution. It's it's like

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outsourcing the issue. It's saying, you know, I'm not going to take that on to something I'm going

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to fix because I didn't break it in the first place, which arguably sometimes it's nicer for us

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to do as managers. But the issue with that is when we move into a position of leadership, we no

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longer can afford the luxury of blame. If you want to be a middle manager who kind of moves

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information around, pushes information, does the reporting, you know, ticks the boxes, does the

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project management, then fine. You can probably get away with blaming and gossiping and just moving

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problems around. But if you truly want to become the leader and I know you do listen to this

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because this is what you're listening. If you truly want to become the leader that just

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achieves incredible things with their team, you know you have a great career that supports your

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life and supports whatever kind of family you ever want to have in the future. Like, you need to

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make sure that you are not falling back on and relying on blame. I'm going to give you an example

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of something that happened to me this morning. So just before we started recording these podcast

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episodes this morning at 10 a.m., I had a sales call at 9 a.m. and the sales call finished at

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half nine. And then I had only 30 minutes to drive to the podcast studio. It's basically a 30 minute

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drive. Like door to door. And I was a bit panicky. I was a bit rushed this morning, like, I'm going to

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be late, but I need to do the sales call. I got t shirt to come here separately. I was going to give

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her a lift. And so this sales call was kind of like dictate in the morning. Okay, I got up early

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to make sure I was prepared, blah blah blah. I get on this call 9 a.m., it gets to

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901902903904 and I'm like, this person's not turning up. And I start to feel myself get a

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little bit frustrated, like, you know, thinking I've moved my whole morning around. I'm letting other

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people down for this call and this person hasn't turned up. And my brain obviously clicks into that

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like egotistical mode of, well, they shouldn't do it and they shouldn't. You know, it's really

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disrespectful of other people's time. And that's immediately where our brain goes because we try

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to outsource the problem to someone else. It's their fault, it's their problem. And whilst of

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course it is a little bit disrespectful to not turn up to that sales call, what I have to do have

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to have to now do as a leader of a business, a leader of a team, someone who wants to grow and

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develop, who wants to quite literally like revolutionise a whole industry. There is no way

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that I can blame someone else for being in that situation. I have to take it back internally. So

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after a couple of minutes of feeling sorry for myself, I had to look myself in the mirror and be

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like, well, did you get double confirmation from this person that they were happy to turn up? No.

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Did we, um, you know, send them an email a day before to get some more information to see if

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they were excited to double check and confirm? No. Um, should we have even had the call at that point

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in the first place? Like, should I have moved it to a different day as soon as they booked it in?

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Because I knew I was going to be rushing and I knew it was going to move my morning around. And

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when you start to do that, you really start to be able to actually solve problems. As the business

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gets bigger and bigger, as we start growing and we have more of these sales calls and I, um, delegate

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these sales calls to other people in the team, we need to have better process around them. We need

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to have confirmation. We need to do information finding. We need to. Yeah. Just double confirm it.

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And so for me this morning, even though it shouldn't have been there, it was a bit too

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stressful. Now as a business owner, as a leader, I have been able to bring that back to me and go,

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here's how I'm going to solve it forevermore. Here's how I'm going to make sure this doesn't

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happen again. Systemise it, delegate it, move on. Big learning take in and big learning made. If I had

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constantly and at not one point if I just constantly blamed and never brought that back in

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like never internalised it and gone, how could I have been better in that situation? I would have

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never made those learnings. And just think of the impact that that's going to have over the course

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of the next few years. As I delegate sales calls to different people in my team, we might even end

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up having a full sales team. You know, we've just launched clustered, which is our new piece of

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software for managers to level everyone up. We're going to need to have like demo and sales calls

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eventually for those. These learnings I have taken on this morning will be put on there. So can you

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see now where I'm starting to say the difference between high performance, the difference between a

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manager and a leader, the difference between people who will go far in their career, who will

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level up, who will go, you know, go for gold. Do not allow blame to be an excuse. It's okay to have

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a reason. What I mean by that is we don't have to be super hard on ourselves all the time. If it is

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someone else's fault, it is a client, it is a different team member. It is a the economy or

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whatever. It is okay to understand and respect that. That is a reason as to why this thing has

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gone wrong. It's just that it can't stop there. We have to then go and what am I going to do about

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it? There's a difference between a reason and an excuse. An excuse is the end of the road and

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excuses. I'm not moving forward because it was the client's problem for not giving me this

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information. A reason is the client didn't give them the information. Okay, now what are we going

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to do about it? So do you see do you see where I'm getting at? And the reason we're talking about

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engagement and ownership together here as two concepts that come together is I truly believe

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the way you get a team engaged is to get them feeling a sense of ownership again. So for example,

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if you are managing a team right now inside a business or a business owner, this can apply to

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anyone. And you. What what excuses are you telling yourself for why your team aren't engaged? I could

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probably list them out for you now. They're young, they're Gen Z, they don't care. They're not

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passionate about what they do. They're lazy. These are all just excuses that you're telling yourself

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as to why they don't care. So then answer me the question. When was the last time you pulled one of

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them up? If you felt that they were being lazy, if you felt that they didn't care. When was the last

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time you spoke to them about it and really dug into the issue as to why? Like, why do you not care

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about this thing? Because I was under the impression that you did and therefore wanted to

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give you those opportunities. But that's not now translating into your work and what I'm seeing. So

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we need to have a conversation about what's going on here. Then also consequences. Consequences speak

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volumes. And when we're talking about consequences, by the way, it's not just negative. It's not just,

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you know, difficult conversation. Performance management consequences can also be positive to

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recognition, praise, reward. If someone in your team is a high performer and is doing excellent things,

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are they being properly rewarded? Are you publicly praising them? Are you recognising them? Are you

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giving them the promotions, giving them development paths? Because when we start to go, oh,

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my team are just lazy. The question we have to ask ourselves is, well, show me what consequences then

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you've put in place over the last 6 to 12 months, have you fired someone? Because if people truly

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are lazy, why are they getting away with it? Why are we still paying them a salary? And I would

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guess the answer is probably oh, actually, they're not lazy. It's just that they've switched off

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because, you know, they've been doing the same mundane task over and over again and no one's

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asked them about it. And so take ownership first ourselves. Also, if you have a team that feels

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really disengaged, that feels really switched off. A big question I like to ask myself here is, is it

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the whole team or is it just one person? Like, is it the full team that's lazy, disengaged, switched

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off, whatever? Or is it that you've got one, maybe two problem people inside that team that could

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potentially be intoxicating? The rest? I always like to think of teams where you have, let's just

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say, for example, you've got five people in a team, right? The top 20%. So in this case it'll be one

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person. One person out of five will always be a high performer. And it could be to do with a

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previous workplace. It could be to do with it. Had it been brought up, I don't know. It could be to do

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with their academia or whatever. They will always be a high performer. You can put them in any given

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scenario and they will give it 100%. They will try hard, they will support other people. They will

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like be this real kind of leader. You've got that person. You will also have the other side of the

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spectrum, which is potentially like the lower performing 20%, and which is one person in this

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team. You've got one person. And when I think about kind of like difficult people, I think of blame. I

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think of excuses, I think of they have just really switched off and they don't care. and we have

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tried things to get them back, for example, difficult conversations, but it's just not worked.

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The problem we have is not the top person. It's not the lower performing person. It's the three

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people in the middle. It's the other 60% of people because those people are somewhere in the middle.

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Meaning they can be influenced either way. So if and this is why we call people toxic. You know,

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people love to throw around that phrase. Oh, this is a toxic person at work. Toxic. Toxic. The reason

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we use that word toxic is because they intoxicate other people. So what we have to make sure of is

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when we have this really low performer, if we tolerate them consistently, aka there's no

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consequences, we aren't exiting them when things get really bad. We're not kind of pulling them

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away from meetings where they might be making other people feel like crap. If we're not doing

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any of that, we might as well expect the other 60% to follow suit. And therefore, when we say things

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like my team or disengage my team are lazy, blah blah blah. Is it your team or is there someone

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who is potentially pulling us back? And this is why when I go on and on and on on the

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internet about having difficult conversations quick, it's so much easier to have a quick

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conversation with someone. It's so much easier to just nip something in the bud over the course of

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months, years, sometimes even decades, sometimes even decades, those people will very slowly

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shrink everyone around them and pull them into their world. Because think of the day that you get

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a budding new employee who is excited, buzzing to be part of your team. They come up with this new

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initiative. You know, maybe we don't hit a target and they come and say, oh, I've got this idea of

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how we can hit the target next month. I'm really excited by it. Then the employee who's been there

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for three years, who's negative as hell, just sits there and goes, nah, we've tried that. Don't work.

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Don't. You'll hear my Yorkshire now don't work. Um, you know, we've tried that before. Doesn't work,

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blah blah blah. If you get that, what do you think that new employee is going to do? Exactly. Because

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it's just human nature. Like we're going to shrink because we've essentially someone's made us feel

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stupid. And so it's those people in the middle. That when we talk about dealing with difficult

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employees, you have to remember it's not just them that they are affecting and it's you. It will be

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you as well. Like you're being impacted by this difficult person. So what do we do about it? This

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is a really great I love talking about this in terms of leadership. If you have someone in your

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team who is consistently falling below the line aka constantly blaming other people, constantly

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making excuses in denial, what do you do? So the very first thing is we

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as their manager cannot allow them to perpetuate that blame. What I mean by that is, let's say

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you're in a meeting and you've got to hit a target and you don't hit it and they come up with

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the excuse. It was a different team and they come up with the excuse. Well, that other team over

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there hasn't completed what they needed to, and therefore I couldn't do mine. What a lot of

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managers would do in that moment is kind of go, yeah, I know it's annoying, isn't it? I get that

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like, yeah, I'm gonna see what I can do about that. What we are going to do, because we are true

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leaders is we are not going to allow that blame to be perpetuated. And so the way that I like to

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respond to stuff like this is just with a question, just close it off with a question. So I

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would say to that person, yeah, I appreciate that's a bit tough. So what did you do about it. And maybe

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they say, oh I've been chasing them. I've been asking them for the information. They just hadn't

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got it over okay. That's that's tough as well. So how do we make sure this doesn't happen again.

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Because this has been happening now for for weeks. So how are we making sure this doesn't happen

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again? Well, the other team just need to be better, right? Well they're not we know that now. It's been

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a pattern for months. They're not going to be better. And we can't control that. We don't manage

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that team. We're not part of that team. So I actually can't tell you that they're going to get

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better. So what are you going to do about it? Like, what are we as a team going to do about this? I

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truly think that questions are one of our biggest superpowers in leadership. Just ask more questions

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than we ever answer. It also helps to like, coach and develop and pass the ownership back to that

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person. If someone gives us an excuse, it's very, very easy for us to perpetuate that

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blame. It's very easy for us to just be like, even if we don't sort of agree and acknowledge it.

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Quite often what we'll do is something like, you know, if they come with an excuse to say, oh, I

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couldn't hit the target because the client didn't, um, send me the information in time or the client

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didn't get over the line. They promised me they would do what we then often do as managers is

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jump in and try and fix that. So we'll say something along the lines of, well, next month I

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want you to try calling these new clients. I want you to try posting on LinkedIn. I want you to try

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sending these emails. We jump in and try to fix again. We're just perpetuating that people don't

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have ownership. We're just basically saying, oh, fine, don't bother bringing me the answer again.

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Then next month. Because you don't need to. Because I can fix it for you. I can, you know, bring it in,

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out, bring it in back to me. And as you can see, over the course of the months, the course of the

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years, we as managers will then complain about time, everything being back on our plate. People

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are not doing things as well as we can do, not being able to delegate because we don't trust

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people. Yet it all goes back to these small moments of people giving us blame, giving us

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excuses, and we just lap it up. We just perpetuate it. We allow it to happen. Instead of pushing back

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with questions and saying it's not to avoid the fact that it's hard. It's okay, I get it. You know,

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it's tough this it's annoying that this other team won't give us the information, but this has

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been going on for months. So you came to me last week and told me the same thing, but you've just

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done the same actions this weeks and expect a different results. That's the definition of

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insanity. So what? You know, we do the same things and we expect different results. It's not going to

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happen. So what are we doing next week to make sure we don't get the same results? This is how we

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build accountability. This is how we build respect with our team. Another great way you can do this

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is with reporting. So I see ownership now as like a physical holding of something. Either I

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physically own the ownership around a certain number metric, initiative project, or someone else

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physically holds it and owns it. And back in the day before, like laptops and computers, that's how

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it would have worked, you know, if you were on the Ford production line and you owned one section of

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that production line, you physically would stand there, own it, review it, make it better, make sure

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before it moves on to the next step by the given date that it was perfect. I think when we have got

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laptops and we work remotely and things are done through spreadsheets, all of that gets a little

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bit convoluted. So we need to make ownership feel as clear as possible. And I think a really

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important distinction that we have to make is your team report into you. So what I mean by that

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is when you do these reporting meetings. So whether it's weekly, monthly, whatever you have,

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your team need to be reporting the data into you. You should not be inputting the data into those

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spreadsheets because, you know, when you go say, if every Monday morning you're going around trying

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to find the data, you know, what did we do last week? How well has it looked? You know that when

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you go through that process, you find things out because you look at number go, hey, that doesn't

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seem right. Let me go and check up on that. Or, hey, that feels like we need something else in that,

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you know, do we need to start looking at this number? Instead, you go through this really

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critical thinking process of winding around, trying to find answers, then questions and, you

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know, digging and digging to eventually come to this conclusion. That is this is the data. This is

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why it's here, and this is what we're going to do about it. If you, the manager or the person who is

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inputting the numbers into the spreadsheet, you are stealing that reporting opportunity and like

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journey of exploration, you're still an opportunity away from the team. But also it means

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you own it. It means like, truthfully, physically, you own that number when realistically your team

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need to own it. So that's kind of like a quick fix, I always think, because delegate the reporting

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over to your team. That's why they're called direct reports. They report into you because they

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report the numbers into you. That's kind of you know, why we use that phrase. But I know that it

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gets mixed up. The lines get crossed a lot of the time. So can you see how you know we love to blame

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the team aren't engaged. The team are lazy. It's so easy to kind of fall back on this idea that

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people are more and more disengaged by the day, whilst you know they are the fact. Yes, it may be

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true. I just take it internally. I'm not letting that happen in my team. I'm not letting that

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happen in my business. And so if you don't want to either, there's just some things that you can do.

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Make sure you do not allow that blame to perpetuate. Make sure you use your communication.

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Ask questions. Ask really deep and challenging questions. And don't be afraid to just sit in the

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silence and allow them to answer it. I'll always remember. Louis Theroux went on Amelia Goldenberg

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chicken shop date thing, and they were talking about like, being interviewers who ask hard

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questions. You ask, a person stood in front of you a really difficult question. It's very hard not to

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like, fill in the gap because you can feel the awkwardness. And what Louis Theroux said was, I

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have built an entire career on being the person who is willing to sit in an awkward silence for

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longer than anyone else, because he asks the question that no one else dare ask, and then he

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just shuts up and he gives someone else in that room space to answer it. When I step on a stage

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and deliver a public speaking gig, or go into a workplace and do a workshop, when I ask, does

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anyone have any questions? Or how do people feel about that? There is at least 30s of silence in

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every single motherfucking room, and the first few times I did it 20s feels like three years. It

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feels like you've got all these eyes on you. No one's listen. No one cares. That is not the truth.

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People are just processing the information. They just need a little bit of time to think. What is

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my question? Yeah, actually, you know, I just need 30s to think and understand. Actually, where do I

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want to go deeper. And so start to get really comfortable with using questions to pass that

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ownership back on to other people. And I also think my mum used to say when I was a bit younger,

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when I was a teenager, she was like, God, Heather, you always ask the questions that no one else

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dare ask. Like you always ask the things that people shy away from. Like I remember growing up,

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there was always difficulty happening, whether it was in family or friends or at school. You know,

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always difficult things like someone would be ill or someone would be struggling with work, lost a

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job, um, going through divorce. Like there was always things happening around my sphere of

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living, as I'm sure there will have been for all of you listening. Like there's always those

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moments in childhood that really stick with you. Something I could never understand was why people

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avoided talking about it so much like all these situations would be happening, whether it was with

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family who were getting divorces or whether it was with, you know, friends who were ill, and you

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would see them and everyone would be like, just don't bring it up. Like, just don't mention it. And

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I would always think, obviously, you know, publicly there's a time and a place you're not going to

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embarrass someone and ask the hard hitting questions in front of a group of people. But when

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you're one on one with people, why would you not just ask them how they're doing about that thing?

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That's really hard in life. Like that never made sense to me. And so and never have I ever, like,

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been met with someone saying, oh, I don't want to answer that, or I wish you didn't ask me that.

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Normally it's just the beginning of a very important deepening conversation. And I think as

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leaders, we need to be asking these questions more. Ask them in one on ones, ask them in reporting

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meetings and questions can just be your biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest asset as a leader. So

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don't be afraid to ask the tough ones with above the line thinking as well. It's kind of like the

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victim versus ownership mindset. None of us are fixed in it, so there's definitely times where and

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I'd say probably to do with things at work. I very much take ownership of shit because I have no

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choice. Because I am a business owner, there is no one. The book does stop with me like I have

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literally no choice. But then there I will sometimes like move back and forward into victim

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mindset. Maybe sometimes it's when I'm in my luteal phase I'm feeling really sorry for myself.

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I'm like, everyone hates me, this is hard. Why did I choose this path? Like and so we do kind of

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move through from victim to owner to blame to accountability. Like it's okay to flip back and

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forth. And I think what we have to remember is there's there's a big difference between thinking

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it and doing it. And so it's okay when shitty things happen to feel shit. I guess there's no

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better word for it than that. Don't remove the feeling of this thing is crap. It's okay. No

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feelings are bad. Anger is not bad. Sadness is not bad. Frustration, jealousy, all of these emotions

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are completely normal. None of them are bad. It's just. What do you do with that next? You know, if

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you're frustrated, do you go and take it out on all your team? If you're sad, do you go and let

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that go into the energy for the rest of your day? If you are angry at something that someone's done,

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do you then go and let that dictate how you speak to that person for the next week? Or do you allow

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yourself to feel it 100%, but then go and have whatever conversation needs to be had with

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someone in response to make sure that we don't allow that to dictate our week or journal. We just

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had a conversation in the studio about journaling and how helpful journaling can be. Like, I remember

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when I used to feel my most sort of nervous and shaky before I went to bed. If it was something

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new that we were doing, I would journal. I would literally have a notebook by my bed. I still have

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it there every single night. If I feel something's really difficult, I've got to do something hard at

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work the next day. I just write those feelings down because I don't want those feelings to kind

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of infect my reaction too much. And that truly is emotional intelligence. It's just having, you know,

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knowing the difference between an emotion and a reaction. You cannot expect your team to be

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accountable. You cannot expect your team to take ownership, to be buzzing, to come up with new ideas,

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to come up with initiatives. If you don't do that first. Your team will do as you do. They will not

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do as you say. And so you have to be this beacon of accountability, this beacon of ownership. Get so

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organised. Always do what you say you're going to do. Like always, be true to your word. If you say,

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I'll get you that thing by Friday, you better get that thing to that person by Friday because they

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will remember. Trust me, that will be a marker in their brain if you don't, that you're not

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necessarily an accountable person, that you're not necessarily to be trusted. And then likelihood is

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give it a few weeks, give it a few months. And why would your team do it? You have to be the manager

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that does what they do. You have to realise that that is kind of the crux of leadership. Your team

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will do as you do. They will not do as you say. And so really make sure that you get this right. First

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you start to take ownership over your own problems, the things that happen externally to

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your team, how do you bring those internally and start to fix them? And then you will just

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positively infect everyone around you, inspire everyone around you to be accountable to and for

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the very difficult performers who don't, who will never be inspired and who will never come on that

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journey. Deal with them separately. Have the difficult conversation. Put them on the

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performance improvement, but do not ignore it. Make sure that there is consequences because if not,

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they will infect the whole team. So thank you for listening to the boardroom. Please comment below

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on this video or on Spotify, wherever it is you're listening. We really, really want to hear from you.

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I personally read every single comment. I want to know what topic would you like us to cover next?

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What is your biggest struggle and your leadership role right now? Comment it below and we will get

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to the topics eventually. I want this to just be me and you together. So tell me what you want to

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talk about. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next Wednesday.