Stop Blaming Your Team and Start Building Accountability, with Bill Gilliland of ActionCOACH

Are your teams falling short of expectations? Before pointing fingers at your staff, it might be time to look in the mirror. In this revealing episode, we tackle the uncomfortable truth that team performance often reflects leadership systems—or lack thereof.

Many leaders claim to dislike meetings, dismissing them as unproductive time-wasters. But what if the right meeting framework could transform your team's accountability and results? We unpack the concept of a "team meeting rhythm" that automatically builds responsibility into your workflow without creating needless bureaucracy.

Want to dive deeper into building effective accountability systems? Our Management Masterclass provides comprehensive training on implementing these frameworks. It offers the structure you need to create the structure your team needs. Reach out today to learn how you can join our next cohort and start seeing the team performance you've always wanted.

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!

Bill

Chapters

• 0:00 Asheville Business Summit Announcement
• 2:14 Leadership Mirror: Examining Team Performance
• 4:04 Effective Meeting Rhythm Framework
• 6:54 Establishing Daily Accountability Systems
• 7:44 Management Masterclass Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Hey there, hope you're having a fantastic week. Just want to remind you that the Asheville Business Summit is coming up in September. You can go to wncsummitcom, you can check it all out. You can get your tickets there. If you want to become a sponsor, you can do all that, but it's time to get started on that. We look forward to having it. It is going to be about a one-year anniversary from whenever Hurricane Helene hit. We're going to be celebrating the recovery. We're going to be celebrating where we're headed and how we're becoming stronger and better every day here in Asheville. So make sure you get out there to WNCSummitcom, check that out. Also. You know for this episode, for this podcast, that we can give you more if we have more subscribers, and so if you haven't hit the subscribe button you're listening to this please hit the subscribe button. We'd appreciate it and it'll allow us to give you even more value.

Speaker 1: 1:42

So I was talking to one of my clients and he was lamenting the fact that he just wasn't getting the results he needed and basically he put it down to the team just wasn't performing up to par. How many of you said that my team isn't doing what they're supposed to do? They're not getting it done. It doesn't mean you have a bad team, it just means that, for some reason, we're not getting the results that we'd like to get from our team. Well, here's the problem. Life is a mirror. So, basically, if you reflect back what your team is doing, you got to look at yourself first. And so, as the coach that I am, I called him on it and I said hey, life's a mirror. What are you doing to hold the team accountable? And he said well, you know this, and that wasn't really anything, not much. And I said well, what kind of team meeting rhythm do you have? And then his response was well, I don't like meetings, and meetings don't work, and blah, blah, blah, and you've heard it all. But it was like well, it was like hang on, it's not the meetings that are not working, it's the fact that the people aren't working and we're not getting the results. So how do we know if the meetings is not worth it? Now, the point of a team meeting rhythm is that it builds in accountability. And you're saying well, all right, bill, what the heck is a team meeting rhythm? Well, it's having a regular schedule of various kinds of meetings that everybody's going to sit. Now, look, I'm with him. I don't like meetings for the sake of meetings. I do like meetings that have a good agenda, that are well-organized and they're regular so that everyone knows how to sit. So you say, all right, bill, what is a good team meeting rhythm? Well, here's a team meeting rhythm for you, and this will build in automatic accountability. Now there's some prerequisites to this and I'll get into what those are.

Speaker 1: 3:39

So Monday we have what we call a Lion Meeting. The Lion Meeting stands for last week. So what happened last week? What are any issues that came up during the week? What are any opportunities that we have moving forward? And then, what are we going to get done this week or next week? And the reason it's called the Lion is because this is meant to be every week. Your team should be individually filling out a Lion sheet on Friday afternoon before they leave, or whatever their last day is before they leave, and putting that in and bringing it to the Monday meeting. And that's a good statement for you to understand. Bring it to the meeting, because a lot of things come up during the week. That'll just be distractions, but they should be handled in the meeting with the whole team so we can get doing Now.

Speaker 1: 4:30

The second thing is individual report meetings. Now I personally like to do these on Thursday. I like to have the Monday meeting, then I like to have the Thursday meeting. And he say well, why do you want to have an individual meeting or coaching session, or whatever you want to call it, with your direct reports on Thursday? Well, if they haven't finished or they haven't gotten the stuff done they said they were going to do that week from the Lion meeting, then Thursday still gives you a chance to get them back on track and potentially save the week by getting some stuff done Friday. So those are two kinds of meetings.

Speaker 1: 5:03

The third kind of meeting is daily huddles and that should happen in individual groups, individual teams, small groups. You come in in the morning, no more than 10 minutes. I usually like to do a quick whiffle. If you don't know what a whiffle is, you can look at one of my other videos. Do a quick whiffle, same deal what happened yesterday? What are you going to get done today? But it's quick, quick, quick. No more than 10 minutes Standing up. That's why we call it a huddle.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Then you also have quarterly planning sessions and then you have yearly and five-yearly planning sessions. Now, the other prerequisite is that you do a to-do list every day, that everybody on the team does a to-do list every day, the night before they go home. So every day they have one to-do list and on Fridays they have the weekly to-do list. So we get people thinking ahead, we get people focused on what they need to done, what's important for them to do, and they get it done. Now, by definition, having this team meeting on Monday and having these individual meetings on Thursday, automatic accountability is created. That's what we're after. We're not after meetings for the sake of meetings. In fact, I want to keep the meetings as short and to the point as possible. That's why we have an agenda. But I want the people to get the results. So if your team isn't getting results, then you may want to set up a team meeting rhythm.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Now, if you'd like more information on all of this and how to do it, then you're going to want to get involved in our Management Masterclass. It's a 12-week course. Design it. If you'd like more information, respond to this email. I'd love to get you in. We've had hundreds of people go through it and the ratings are five stars. They're getting great results. You're getting great results from your team, and the nice thing about the Management Masterclass is it creates the accountability for you to create the accountability for your team. So I look forward to seeing you in the Management Masterclass. If I can help you with anything, hit me up here. Until next time, all the best.