You Get the Team You Deserve

Leaders often complain about their teams — disengaged employees, poor performance, difficult conversations.

But what if the real issue isn’t the team?

In this episode, Russel sits down with leadership expert David Dilger to explore how leaders shape the behavior, performance, and culture of their teams — often without realizing it.

They discuss why avoiding tough conversations hurts everyone involved, how focusing on observable behaviors changes the way leaders manage performance, and why trust is built through consistent everyday interactions, not one big moment.

Because the truth is simple:
 The culture you experience as a leader is often the culture you’ve created.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today we have David Dilger, and here is why he is awesome. He's the director and co-founder of Edge Legal, an Australian based employment and safety legal firm, empowering employee employer relations across organizations by challenging traditional rigid HR tools. HR? Rigid? Weird. And helping build respectful workplaces free of legal fears.

David led an organization is CEO to national. Finalist and joint state, Tasmanian. It looks like winner, the Australian Human Resources Initiative People Management Awards. So, he's done some things and he is here with us. Hello, Dave.

David Dilger: Good day, Russel. Thanks for having me.

Russel Lolacher: Makes it all official. When you say good day and that we're recording at 7:00 PM... pm. I rarely do PMs, so you know we're going on the other side of the country now. World right.

David Dilger: Are down under right now. Lunchtime

Russel Lolacher: There you go. Way to get geography on me. I love that. Where in Australia are you specifically?

David Dilger: Well, I'm right down under, I'm in Hobart, Tasmania, so the island at the bottom of mainland Australia where the infamous Tassie Devil on Warner Brothers comes from. And yeah, that's me, not Tanzania.

Russel Lolacher: Fair, fair comment. Not not Argentina, We're, we're really challenging geography today.

David Dilger: Yeah,

Russel Lolacher: I've only made it as far as Melbourne, but I absolutely loved my time there. So, thanks for joining us

David Dilger: No, my pleasure.

Russel Lolacher: Even though you're international, you do not get off the hook so easily When it comes to the first question, sir, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience

David Dilger: Me personally or what I've dealt with?

Russel Lolacher: What you've, whatever's impacted you the most through your

David Dilger: Yeah, look, I think probably the biggest one for me is as a, as a manager, and that is. What I was prepared to put up with in the moment versus what I was really prepared to put up after some rational thought. So there's lots of times you self congratulate yourself by allowing the status quo to maintain itself, and you go, look, this is all good.

I'm being a great manager. I'm allowing all this to happen. Don't rock the boat. And then when you finally scrunch up your, your stomach and, and make the hard decision and, and actually tell somebody, you know, what you just performing at the same level as you're doing is not actually the right thing for us, nor is it for you.

Then actually having that decision and, and that acceptance. For me as a manager, it was the right thing for me as that employee, it was the right thing and for the business, it was the right thing to do in the moment. Very, very hard, and it had changed all of what we'd been doing quite comfortably for a long period of time.

But, but that business went on from strength to strength. I went on from strength to strength, and so did that employee. And that is where almost fundamentally these crucial conversations, which I'm such a big advocate for are the heart of what I do as, as now as a, as an advisor.

Russel Lolacher: And how do you approach that conversation, because it obviously has to lead up to a point. It's not like you just do this reactionary, so I'm just kind of, well, some people do do it reactionary and it usually doesn't go. L. So how do you prepare yourself for those situations?

David Dilger: So you need to prepare yourself by actually having the objective. Now, this wasn't a single conversation, this was a series of conversations. Where I first brought it to the employee's a attention where I wasn't trying to get the outcome in the single meeting, and I had a mindset that said, you know what?

I'll put up with this for two years. I can put up with it for possibly another two months as we go through. So I wasn't trying to achieve it in one fell swoop. I actually said, I'm gonna first bring you the the issue and we're gonna talk about it, and I want you to feel comfortable in what you are gonna tell me, and then I'm gonna think on that.

And I'm gonna come back with a considered opinion and I don't have all the answers right now, and I'm not gonna pretend that I do. And I also don't have a defined outcome that I absolutely must achieve. I either had what I called the fork in the road moment, which is you're gonna get on board with the new way, or you are gonna go a different way.

And I'm gonna support you in both, but I just need the clarity of what that part is because me choosing left and you choosing, right? We still have frame collision and that's still a conflict situation, but it's unmanaged conflict. When you and I finally get on board. And we have, you know, frame concordance then.

Then the issue is we are working with that solution together. And although it's uncomfortable, that's when we worked our way through. So it was over a series of conversations, but we also had a relationship. That was built before that, so I didn't just start it hoping for this almighty change. I'd been doing that for a long time, albeit unsuccessfully, but so that employee knew those conversations weren't of themselves, something they needed to be scared of.

They'd been there enough times to know I am going to have their sort of interests at heart, not their best interest, that they will always get what they want. But at least I was considering it and I was going to demonstrate that I'm gonna work our way through this and we are gonna give an outcome.

Now, now on that situation, people would say, oh, so they, you worked together and lived happily ever after. No, that employee went somewhere else and they're very successful elsewhere. And we can still see each other in the street and exchange pleasantries, and that's a good outcome.

Russel Lolacher: I love the undertone of relationship, obviously the name of the damn podcast. So obviously I gotta preach that a bit. Underlying that, no surprises should be happening here. If you have a relationship, nobody should be being blindsided because that's when you get the ne every becomes reactionary.

What I'm super curious about is that you mentioned no defined outcomes because there'll be a lot of people going, you need to know what's gonna happen on the other end of it. So you're prepared, but based on what you're telling me. That's still part of the conversation is to where it's gonna go. What we as leaders need to understand is that we have to be flexible to support wherever it ends up going and not be too prescriptive.

Because if we're too prescriptive, and this is from my own experience, it gets too rigid, and then there's disappointment, then there's other things and baggage attached to that.

David Dilger: Absolutely. I think all, yeah, all, all of us wanna say that we active listen. And I think what happens is if you ever catch yourself not doing that, the main reason is you've got a predetermined outcome. And you are preparing to invest your energy and your brain power in rebutting what the other person said.

Whereas I think the real high status maneuver in which a lot of people would be better served is going, I'm a manager who can chart the course of my employee, whatever that is, on whatever circumstances we get dealt with, and I don't have to be prepared to prove my point. Right. In the moment, so I do listen to you.

I do under try and understand, and guess what? If I don't know it in that, in that moment, I have another meeting and I'm not worried about that. It had to be done today. It could be done tomorrow, the next week, as long as we are continuing to talk. And as long as that employee is aware that I'm still listening with that, with that understanding of those circumstances.

And there's plenty of times that I don't know everything that's going on with you. And as soon as I do that, I actually, I actually adopt the status of this person is actually in control and this person is actually going to manage. The issue, not the issue that David wanted?

Russel Lolacher: Fair. Fair. And I'm hearing a lot of undertones of what we're gonna be talking about today, which is. Behavior, which is as leaders, we create the team behaviors around us. So I need to start though, first with defining what the hell we're even talking about, especially when we talk about behaviors in the workplace.

How do you define behavior?

David Dilger: Well, I think when I, when I, what I say with behavior, it's what you do, what you say. Things like that. What people tend to do, I'll give you the reverse. People give you conclusions. Russ is aggressive, and then I say, but how's he aggressive? What were the behaviors of how he's aggressive? Well, Rus was shouting at me.

He was using, he was swearing at me, he was pointing at me. He was using invasive body language, posturing, all that sort of stuff. They're the behaviors. And I, I say to people when you're trying to work this out. Play me the movie. Don't give me the movie review. The movie review is, Russ is aggressive playing me.

The movie is, Russ stormed into the meeting. Russ slammed the door. Russ pointed his finger at me, Russ swore at me. All of these sort of things. And so that's what you're trying to actually adjust the behavior, not the conclusions. 'cause it's pretty easy to throw out. And weaponize. Russ is a bully. Russ is aggressive, all of these things.

Whereas if the behaviors are Russ swore at me, I might ask, is that a once off? Or is, is that a regular occurrence? Or how did he swear? Because we all know the difference between aggressive swearing and non-aggressive swearing and even jocular swearing. Now, it depends on your workplace, of course, what you'll tolerate, but I think we all know the difference.

Russel Lolacher: I, I love that, especially because swearing is such a interesting one you bring up. So I used to talk and do a lot of work in the customer service field and I know organizations. That would have a mandate that if anybody, any customer ever swore at you, you were able to end the conversation. You were empowered to do so, and that pissed me off.

And I'll, and I'll tell you why, is because they may be so frustrated based on the experience they've had to date with you and your organization, that they are using that language because, and out of frustration, they're not being racist or aggressive or mad at you. It's the experience, and I flip that onto the employee because we're so quick to shut things down because we don't like it, rather than to your point.

Understanding why the behavior is happening. Investing curiosity into it rather than going swear equals bad, equals bad employee equals, I don't have to work with you anymore, or I need to shut this down. Or making it more dramatic than it's so, I love that you pointed out swearing. 'cause I think that is a trigger point for a lot of people when they'll use words like professionalism.

When you and I are talking about being respectful.

David Dilger: Yeah, I, I, I think that the, the challenge out of all of this. Is actually going, where is it that your, you as a manager are gonna look for what I call performance and then slippage versus misconduct, some sort of breach. So everyone wants to say it's a breach of this policy. It's a breach of our code of conduct.

It's a breach. Whatever. Instead of just going, Hey Russ, I needed you to be here and you dropped to here. How do I get you back up to here? And, and like a lot of people will say, oh, you are rewarding poor behavior. And I'll say, well, okay, let's talk about the behavior. Because Russ also did a hundred great things yesterday.

He was a high performing employee. He was polite, he did things for the team, and guess what? Yeah, Russ got a little frustrated and he swore at someone. And as a manager, if you're worth your salt, don't you just go, let's just take the, the poor behavior as something that can actually be. Fix and is fixable rather than trying to go got your moment and finding everything a breach.

I find low status managers or managers who are insecure, that tends to be their go-to. I'll breach you. I point something out concrete. I look at the rule book and I say, you've marked up and I can find something. Rather than saying, I am worth my soul as a manager and I'm just gonna adjust. Russ's poor behavior in that moment with just some reasonable management action.

I don't need to bring Russ into disciplinary focus when, as you say, yeah, I lost my call. I, I dropped an F bomb and I'm sorry for that. I mean, what more do you want from that man?

Russel Lolacher: So, what do you mean when you're talking about a leader creating behaviors?

David Dilger: Well, I think leaders have to model the behaviors they want. So you, you get the team you deserve and you get the culture you deserve as well. So when managers come to me and say, oh, my team do X, Y, and Z, they roll their eyes at me, they go silent on me in meetings and so forth. I ask, what have you done about that?

Where have you identified what is acceptable or not? And actually what are the, the mechanisms that you do to give either immediate feedback or feedback in a one-on-one with an individual or actually your own behavior actually demonstrating why you would, what you model. As acceptable behavior for others.

I mean, it's no good telling people. I was disappointed in your attention during the meeting. When, when they come in and speak to you, you are talking to them. Yep. Yep. Like this, and you are still doing emails and, and yet you say, and so the, the behavior I dislike is you being distracted elsewhere. That's where managers need to be going.

Rightio. There's some hard yards here that I actually have to walk my talk, and that is I'm aware of the behaviors that I'm requiring. And if I'm talking to someone about those other behaviors, then two, that's something where the extra effort has to be lifted into modeling that, because otherwise you will get those behaviors that exist in an organization and it will be.

One or two years down the track that you will then reach your, I can't deal with it anymore moment. And that's where most of the stuff I deal with as a lawyer is, it's not the once or twice when someone rolled their eyes at you. It's when they've done it enough over a period of months and you had a bad day and then you just decide to sack them on the spot.

That's when you tend to get into trouble. And I think that's what managers need to be aware of.

Russel Lolacher: I wanna bring back something you brought. Up from your own experience you brought up earlier, which is around expectations and that we shouldn't have defined expectations, but I feel like that would come up in this when we're modeling behavior, we're modeling behaviors that we want, that we expect of others, and I'm curious how that may help or get in the way.

David Dilger: Well, I think and this, this is gonna be controversial, but I, I often say to. Managers that we are assisting, be prepared to be malleable with your policies and procedures and not use them as as defined rules, which can never, ever be breached. And by that I mean sometimes you've gotta be comfortable in going, you know what?

This is the way we've always done it. This is what it says, but we need to change it. And I was wrong, or I misguided what we thought. The intent was great at the start, but guess what? Circumstances have now changed and we're going on a different direction in almost all other circumstances. You know, if you're playing professional sport or even just having fun playing the guitar or basket weaving or something.

You feel quite comfortable in going, you know what? I was doing it this way and it turns out it's not right. And you would happily go, guess what? And now I'm just gonna change. Yet, managers feel almost petrified to say once I've said something, it can never, ever go back. We've, we've changed that and I think all it is with our one-on-ones.

If you explain with the people, and I kind of say to people what I've seen with things like sexual harassment and bullying. They changed over time. What we see in terms of sexual harassment in 10 years ago was still the groping, the wolf whistling, stuff like that. And now the more infringing behavior is sort of those double the double entendres, the sexual innuendo.

Highly personalized questions. So things change and responses change with them. And as long as you're saying everything is not an absolute for forever, and you are that type of manager who can cope with the ambiguity, then you are a real manager because AI or a trained animal can basically hit the bell when they need to.

But how do you as a manager cope with an ambiguous situation where a little bit of judgment's called into question? That's when you'll be worth your soul.

Russel Lolacher: I'm hearing a lot of intention in this as well. It, it is if you are going to model behaviors thank you for getting me through that as well. With, with diversity, I'm assuming will be a huge piece of this and I do want to touch on that, but when it comes to intention, we model with intention like was we have to be very self-aware of what we're modeling in order to create the behaviors of those around us, but not all of our. Actions are positive. How does things like silence or inaction also help with, you know, creating behaviors around us?

David Dilger: I think look, I think silence is a great one. Sometimes you don't have to have all the answers, so sometimes silence is you sitting and going, well, Russ, you propose X, Y, and z. Talk me through that instead of needing to say Your plan won't work, Russ, like, why don't I just wait and use that as a moment that actually says.

Conversations and thinking time are actually an important part of it. Talking all the time is not an important part. And I talk to groups and I say, who do you reckon? If you're looking in a room, who do you think has the highest status? And we get, oh, the person at the end of the table, the person with the title, the person who speaks the most, the person who speaks the loudest.

And I say, no, the person with the highest status in the room. Is everyone else shuts up when they start talking and they don't need to put their hand up or tell others to. People go, they're worth listening to. And that's built up over many, many instances of people going, I respect this person. I hear what they want to say, and I'm going to give you all of my attention.

If you are the manager who needs to yell, everybody's shut up. I'm trying to talk. They don't respect you. And that's probably been built up over a long period of time. It didn't just happen in this meeting. The respect was something different over, over the, the way in which you've managed your people. So I think silence is sometimes just the pause and like, I'm waiting.

I can wait here all day. I don't need to give the answer. That's when you show, again as a manager. I'm in control of this and you can trust me that you and I will get through this issue. We haven't worked it out. It's not David's version. It's not Russ's version. We'll work through somewhere on that and look, the numbers don't matter if it if I'm 90% right in your 10%, right?

So what? But that's where I think managers need to go. I don't need to get the a hundred percent David version of anything.

Russel Lolacher: Understood. Okay. So it keeps reminding me about the self-awareness piece. It keeps reminding me of how aware we need to be because. being silent, we have to know we're being silent for a reason. We have to know that there's, again, back to the intention. So how does leaders, how do we identify the behaviors in ourselves that we may be wanting to contribute in a good way, or those we wanna stifle because they're in a bad way.

David Dilger: I think Aristotle said it best when he said, knowing yourself is, is the beginning of all wisdom. And look, I say to most people, we work with, give yourself a little bit of assistance here. You gotta know yourself before you can manage others. So whether you use Disc or Enneagram or Myers-Briggs or something like that, that's where you should start.

That will give you a likelihood that increases your ability to understand yourself and understand others. 'cause it gives you patterns. Now I understand people turning around saying, oh, don't put me in a box, David. You know, all of these sort of things. Go in with it, with the, with the positive intent.

And I'm glad you are mentioning intent. 'cause so many times people want to find, they, they judge most things with a negative intent. So they go out of their way to find the negative intent rather than. Going, I am positively going to find positive intent with your behaviors. So when I say, Hey, let's do these, let's use disc.

Now if you're negative, you go, oh, you just wanna pigeonhole everyone so you can control us. Well, what about. I wanna understand myself, I wanna understand you, and I want to give myself or increase the likelihood that when I have discussions with you, I'm gonna hit the mark more times than I don't, and I think out of all of it.

Now my message is don't try and be something you're not. You've already got your personality pretty much ingrained and really my message to managers is just do less of the bad stuff you do. Don't try and be someone you're not so. If you are the type of person who's collaborative and, and likes group works, you don't want to be autocratic and going, but I've seen it on on movies and I have to be this corporate hardass.

If you will come acRussel as inauthentic and you'll be ineffectual when you try and be something you're not. So in this self-awareness, it's going. Get a bit of assistance with, with highly data driven tools like disc, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, doesn't matter. And then start to work out how do I use those to build relationships positively.

Russel Lolacher: But how do you know you're doing it well? So you do your Myers-Briggs, you do your, you know, disc. That's usually a one-time thing that people don't do again for a long time. But then they have to be consistent because if they're creating behaviors in others, they have to be con, they have to be a source of consistency, a source of truth.

How do they keep that going?

David Dilger: Do it with lots of little tools. So when you're having your discussions, you openly discuss it. Like of course we've all been to the management courses where we were all hyped up and this is amazing and yeah, this is great, but if you don't practice it daily, you'll never ever implement it. The better organizations I've seen are where they ingrain and embrace.

Those types of tools in everything they do on their laptops. They have a color or a guidance note on it, on their office doors, on their email signatures. And again, I can get people going, oh, you're labeling us and, and you're putting us in a box. But if you had the positive intent that just said, no, I'm signaling to you the best way in which I can.

Be managed and manage you. So I think, and there's an Australian coach, he wrote some fantastic books called Michael Stanya, and he talks about. You know, to, to actually manage anyone, doesn't matter who. The first thing you gotta know is what makes you shine? When are you in flow? Then you've gotta ask what, what fulfills you and what are you good at?

And then ask the other way, what are you good at? And what fulfills you? Because not everything you're good at fulfills you. Sometimes people are in jobs and they don't like it. Then you ask, what are the mechanics? That you and I work with Russ, are you the guy that you want me to barge into the office and just go, Russ, we've got a problem, we've gotta talk.

Or do you want me to send you an email and say, Hey, can we have a meeting tomorrow? Do I do it on a Friday night or never on a Friday night? Is it a Monday morning job or, or are you the person who says no? Then that gets me off to the end of the week. Somewhere along the lines, we've gotta work out. If we break this, how do we fix it?

And what are the tools and mechanisms which are most likely. Not to send us into a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. Okay. Then I know you and I are rationally thinking we are not into our sort of reptilian automatic response, our amygdala response, and we're just more likely to get a better outcome.

Russel Lolacher: I am glad you brought up the brain stuff though. Brain stuff. How sciencey am I, Dave?

David Dilger: You and me both.

Russel Lolacher: re, the reason I bring it up is because when I hear tools, I'm, I'm very pro tools, but there's a lot of people that won't do tools because they don't have the right mindset to even do that anyway. They're not curious.

So I'm kind of curious as to why or what do you think leaders, what mindset shifts do they even need before they start taking things like these? Seriously? 'cause truthfully, they need to be in the right head space before they take a disc seriously, before they take some of these tools seriously.

David Dilger: Yeah, Dan Siegel talks about being in the optimal zone, and the optimal zone is pretty much not overregulated or under-regulated, so a bit of brain science. You get information through your sensors, goes into. A part of your brain, which is kind of like a big triage center, and then it has two options.

It can go to the prefrontal cortex, which is your thinking part, or it can go to your amygdala, which is, i I sense fear or danger when you are sensing danger. Or fear you, you will only have four main responses. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn and fight. Looks like you're a bad manager. I'm taking you on. I'm gonna make a claim against you.

Flight looks like I'm not dealing with this right now. I'm leaving. I'm on long-term Workers' comp. Freeze is that moment where you just say nothing. It's dissociative. You actually go, if I do nothing here, it's kind of like when animals play dead. I'll just get the meeting over and, and, and we'll live to fight another day.

And then you get fawning, which is, I'm overly nice to you for no reason. So it's, Hey Russ, you are the bully in the office. Let me go and buy you a cup of coffee. And the reason why I'm doing that is not 'cause I actually genuinely want to give you a cup of coffee. It's 'cause I'm scared of you if I don't.

So then if we're either, and then if you have a lit, think about that. The overregulated is when you're in fight or flight and, and your frontal cortex cannot operate optimally when your amygdala is giving you those responses. And equally, when you're dissociating through either fawning or freezing. You are, you are down the bottom part where you're not in the optimal zone too.

So the reality is you can't actually work through it because all you are doing is a fear-based response and the logic part of you doesn't work as well as it should. And here's some other things that happen. Your memory's impacted and your immune system gets compromised. So they had a really guy by the name of Gil Martin from the US is trying to work out where, where police.

Versus fire officers. How come police officers are more likely to suicide, more likely to have marriage breakdowns, all the bad stuff. And the main reason is they are con or are more exposed to amygdala triggering responses. On a regular basis than fire officers. And what Gilmar says is, look, we are pretty good when we have something challenging or fear, if we get up and our amygdala is kicked in, as long as we then get a recovery time, our body's pretty good at getting us back to homeostasis.

But if you are always just in an amygdala triggered response, and imagine this. You are my boss, Russ, and every time you walk in, I start to go, oh. And then you send me an email and going, oh, you know what's he want? It's gonna be bad. And even if it was, you're just gonna give me some tickets to a rock concert if my amygdala is telling me this is all bad.

My amygdala is giving me a fear-based response and, and I can't control that logically until I work out what I can reasonably deal with in terms of certainty. So if you've got employees who are constantly uncertain and worried. They will be consistently in an amygdala triggered response. And your ability to actually have these logical conversations is very, very low.

And that's why you need to change the trust dynamic so that when I speak to you, I go, no, I think this person actually does have my interests in their contemplation. And we could actually, you know, achieve a result here. Once they're in that, then you and I are conversing. We are not, we are not responding to each other.

Russel Lolacher: Bringing the team into it. So you, you've already sort of touched on that quite a bit, but I'm, I'm curious from a transparency standpoint. So I'm a leader trying to model the behaviors or trying to create the behaviors I want in my team. Do I bring the team into that understanding that that is what I'm intentionally doing?

Do I bring them into the conversation?

David Dilger: Yeah, you have to, you have to say if, if, imagine this. One of the big tests in when you are trying to introduce change of this is you go, what type of organization are you? If I say to you and the team are watching, Hey, Russ, come into my office. You really got two outcomes here. Is Russ in trouble? And everyone goes, Ooh, Russ is in trouble, or is Russ just having a discussion with his manager?

Right now, if you are that organization that goes, Russ is in trouble, then you've got a big problem. And the big problem is that they associate speaking with their manager is always something which is consistent with danger. And you've gotta reverse that and that takes time. So there've gotta be multiple in instances.

When Russ's amygdala goes, no. When I went into the office with David last time. We talked about this project and nothing bad happened. Then the next time we talked about, we talked about X and Y, and yeah, you keep on going. If you only do a performance appraisal once a year and I give you the the infamous kiss kick, kiss kick, then your amygdala is going.

This has always been bad and I have no experiences which can change my worldview. That speaking with my manager. Is a risk. And so we, early on, and this is the, the, the challenge with this type of change, you've gotta be able to say to your team, we are gonna start having conversations. And here's what we're gonna do, and here's what my intent is, and here's what I will try and do.

And I may make mistakes, but guess what? We've got the next meeting to fix that, and I'll be aware of feedback. If that process starts, you are on your road to embedding that type of behavior. But you know, do it once. Yeah. Very little chance of actually achieving anything. Do it twice. And this is when you have a look at those performance appraisals.

You know, even when organizations go, we doubled our efforts instead of doing appraisals once a year, we now do it twice a year. I'm going, eh, not really.

Russel Lolacher: You're bringing something else into this that I think is a mindset shift that we previously mentioned, which is vulnerability because you are bringing it into a conversation where you're saying, I'm acting like this and you need to challenge me, and we need to work these things out. But as a leader, you have to be willing to say, you're not right.

You are willing to change. You want this feedback, this advice that feels like a missing ingredient for a lot of people when it comes to changing behaviors.

David Dilger: Yeah. Oh, look, I mean, don't, don't take my word for it. Brene Brown has got this covered in terms of, of of what it means. Vulnerability is not, not just own. You know, a lot of times people think vulnerability is, it says, oh, I make mistakes too. And they think that's being vulnerable, that's not being vulnerable.

That's sort of signaling, sort of management speak and things like that. Genuine vulnerability is actually going. I'm bringing you into the tent with me to share what we are going through. And I'm not really sure where I'm going, but I, I, I'm, I'm confident that together we can work this through. And I may not have all of the answers either, and, and I'm worried too, but I'm not doing it to win one over you.

I'm not doing it to hoodwink you. I'm actually doing it with genuineness that says, like I said, right at the start. I don't have an outcome that I'm trying to achieve. Like for me, I'm saying there's, there's some principles that I need to tick off and we need to get to somewhere, but I'm not saying it's my way or the highway.

I'm saying, this is the path I want to take you down. What can we achieve together reasonably and effectively? Sometimes you have to jump off and it says. We can't, this will not work and this is the end of the road, and that's okay too. But as long as you gave it a crack, rather than saying, I know this isn't gonna work out.

So I'm just going through the motions with you, Russ, and hopefully you'll, you'll, you'll dec recruit yourself before I have to.

Russel Lolacher: How do you invite accountability into these conversations? 'cause as the leader, isn't it completely on us? Or is it now that we've invited the entire team to collectively create this behavior, doesn't that mean the accountability is on everybody?

David Dilger: Absolutely, and and what you're saying is. You need to hold me accountable to our processes, what we agree, you know, from this meeting. And I'm equally gonna hold you accountable on what you are doing. And sometimes that accountability is in the behaviors you exhibit. Sometimes it's actually in the outcomes that you actually deliver.

So. It. And, and by that I mean people are saying, oh, David, there's aren't, aren't you confusing the two issues? And I go, no. There's a hell of a difference between saying I needed to get this report in on time. I got it in on time so I win, don't I? And I'm going, no, because it wasn't your best work and you begrudgingly did it.

And you kind of brought everyone else down in the team going, oh, Russel has got me to do this work and I have to work over hours. And ah ha ha ha, I got it in on time. Then I'm going, yeah, you got the outcome. But the behaviors were unacceptable, and so I'm having the discussion saying your accountability has to be on the behaviors that you exhibited in getting to that outcome.

And I think that's, that's just a day-to-day grind of management. That, that ultimately it doesn't ever change. It's the hardest part. It's you keeping accountable for your accountability and also your. You are the person in charge with monitoring the accountability that others are doing. They have to play their part in it, but you've got that special role in saying, I'm watching this either, how do I take the obstacles out of the way for you?

Or how do I assist you in getting over some type of block that you are having? And that, that, that's just the, the day in, day out of, of management, very unsexy. Not in a plan, probably you can't put it in an app. But realistically, that's what you gotta do.

Russel Lolacher: So let's step away from the operational, and let's get a little bit more into the organization side of things. How can an organization as a whole support foster, encourage behavioral alignment and, and I'm curious, whose responsibility is it? Is it hrs? Is it executives? Where do we start?

David Dilger: It starts from the top because this is where the challenge is always gonna be. What, what do you want the reports in on time or do you want a happy workforce? And it's definitely not hrs role. I think HR has copped a, a horrendously bad rap of either being ineffective or blockers. Managers should manage their direct reports and HR just gives you tools, assistance systems, and support.

So when managers are not happy with something, my first question is, what have you done about it? Don't be looking to offload that employee or that issue to HR or someone else. So organizations need to. To agree with this type of process wholeheartedly. And initially you could expect that the only people doing it are going to be the executives or the board or whatever.

Who says this? And the reason why that tends to happen is because probably there's still a disconnect between what you say and what you model. So what I'd be saying with it is most of the time, the better outcome is you've gotta start modeling this stuff and then introduce the change gradually, rather than coming in and going, guess what?

I'm gonna change tomorrow and I've got this whizzbang idea that I'm gonna implement on all of you, and you are gonna love it. It's just too hard. Those behaviors have to sort of step. And step in and be comme commencing many months before so that the trust is there. If people don't trust you, they can't rely on your competence.

It's just a, it's just one of those evolutionary things. Amy Cuddy talks about it in her book. She talks about, you know, the most. Competent person in cave people times was the person who could light the fire, but only if I trust, you're not gonna burn me with it first. And that's how management works, right?

Do I understand my manager who says, this is the way I'm gonna manage your performance is going, I've got your interest in my mind. Not that you get, as I said, you don't get everything you want. It's not your best interests. It's not an advocate for you. But at least I was thinking about it, and you can trust me that I'm at least gonna do it with genuine good intent.

Russel Lolacher: I've often brought up that there are two sides to trust. There is the trust, that's good, but there's also the trust that's bad. I trust you to be not have my back. I trust you to burn me with the fire. So I'm glad you gave the flip side there as well. I wanna bring up something that we kind of touched on briefly at the beginning, which is around diversity and.

So when we're talking behaviors, a behavior that we may champion may be very different for a different generation, a different geography sort of How do you bring or understand that, or do we feel like this transcends diversity? Please don't say no. Don't say yes.

David Dilger: No, I think, I think the reality is, and I do a lot of work with people, particularly on this generation gap, but also dealing with, I think the two main neurodiverse type challenges in terms of autism and A DHD I'm saying right to all the stuff I said right back at the start. Your policies can be, should be malleable enough to deal with the slight differences.

And as long as we set the expectations and they're reasonable, then they don't have, everyone seems to be pushing. I need a precedent outcome for everything because David, if I, if I slightly diverge from the precedent outcome. All hell's gonna break loose. It never does, but, but you have to convince people and give them the confidence that little adjustments in working through are, okay.

So for example, going, I don't want you coming into a meeting wearing your headphones and listening to music. And they go, but Russ. Who has openly told people his a SD is going, but I, I need that because I get overwhelmed and I'm a better con contributor. And then someone saying, oh, one rule for them, one rule for us.

And I'm saying, no, same rule, same expectations. The expectation is the contribution, not how you turn up. Oh, well I, I like to have my music on and that helps me, and I'm going, okay. I understand that, but what the, the problem with that is that impacts on others by having to listen to the music. Russ is coming in with his headstone on their noise canceling, and, and there's a difference there.

And look, let's not just try and find the wrong in me and, and trying to get around the answers. It's actually going, we are gonna adjust. It's horses for courses in the circumstances, and I'm only gonna work that out when I have regular one-on-one discussions with you, and I can then explain, and this is the reason why, and I understand you think it's unfair, but this is what we are doing and here's our path.

You will not please everyone. There will always be that factor going. That's unfair, that's wrong. I feel personally hurt. Sorry. Yeah. There's sometimes casualties on this, that, that's just the way it goes. But the good intent is your first element and then building that trust that will, that will get you through.

Russel Lolacher: Any things, organizations, and I'm thinking systems, I'm thinking norms. Anything you feel organizations are doing, that's just getting in the way of us being able to get behavior alignment.

David Dilger: Yeah, I think as, as soon as you start going back to thinking in terms of everything as misconduct and going for gotcha moments. That will set you way back. I think when you try and tell me there's only one outcome to a problem, instead of balancing what I call competency in care sometimes, you know, that's what I'm saying.

The way you treat 65-year-old David, who's got English as a second language, he's got four, four kids and you know, and a and a sick wife. Versus 45-year-old David who's, you know, recently been promoted and you know, is on a leadership program versus 25-year-old David, who's newly out of college and is, you know, brand spanking new and.

And doesn't have a lot of clues about, you know, this new workplace he's in. And I'm saying, you need to be on the seesaw, which balances competency and care in those circumstances. Sometimes you've gotta go back onto the competency and other times it's, Hey, this person's really struggling at the moment, me saying.

You were five minutes late today to 65-year-old David, and he said, yeah, I had to drive my wife to hospital. And you're going, oh, well, well, David, the rules are, you know, nine o'clock. We all agreed. I'm going, how helpful is that you don't get the kudos for enforcing misconduct when you could deal with it with a competency in care and actually deal with it?

Is, does that performance in that moment actually really impact anyone negatively? If not, let it go.

Russel Lolacher: Fair. So if somebody's listening, going, behavior alignment, creating behaviors, I want, I want that. I love this, Dave speaking my language. What would you recommend to them to start even just tomorrow, to sort of start exploring and moving in that direction?

David Dilger: The number one go-to for our organization and we just can't beat it. Is just one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. Okay? Now, if you are doing it once a year and you tell me that, you know, once a month would be the absolute most I'd go, that's an improvement. If you could get it down to once a fortnight, I'd go even better.

And if you could do it weekly, I'd be going, that's kind of the gold standard. Now people will go, oh, Dave, you don't understand. I've got 10 people and I'm going. Okay, let's, maybe it's 10 or 15 minutes each. Maybe that would take three hours outta your week. What are you doing for the other 35 hours? Like your job as a manager is to set up the environment for the team.

Okay. So if you are not finding out stuff and working through. It seems like you are just managing the tasks and you're not actually managing the people, and I don't reckon you are doing your title any service or, and you're certainly not doing the organization any service either by not managing your people.

So one-on-ones as much as you could do the gold standards weekly, but if you are doing something more than you are currently doing, you are on the path to improvement.

Russel Lolacher: Well, that is David Dilger. He is the director and co-founder of Edge Legal and he is given us a lot to think about today. Thank you very much for being here, Dave. All the way from

David Dilger: Yeah. Thanks for having me.