Kevin de la Motte: He told me about them and he said, you know, they’re just not—don’t think that they’re ever a career employee.

Sari de la Motte: And most people are not these days. They are going to move on, and we tend to look at that as some betrayal or they aren’t loyal, and that’s not necessarily true. People do things for their own reasons and are on their own path.

Announcer: You’re listening to Sari Swear on the Sari Swears podcast.

Sari de la Motte: Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Sari Swears. We are here today with my number one stalker, um, Kevin de la Motte. Hi.

Kevin de la Motte: Hi.

Sari de la Motte: Hi coach K.

Kevin de la Motte: Good to see you.

Sari de la Motte: Good to see you too, but I um, don’t love what we’re talking about, but I also love what we’re talking about because I thought a minute of whether we should actually even share this and I think we should and we always do. We overshare actually.

Kevin de la Motte: It’s still pretty raw though.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah, it is pretty raw. So today we are talking about why employees leave without notice and how to stop it. And as you might imagine at this point, uh, the reason we’re talking about it is because it recently happened to us. I think this is the first time.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah, I can’t remember anybody…

Sari de la Motte: Minus one, that was a special circumstance, which we won’t talk about today. But um, and that one ended up being actually fine in the end. But this is the first time this has happened to us.

Kevin de la Motte: This is the first time that somebody has just cut the cord.

Sari de la Motte: And it has ghosted us. And it was a very important role in our company and we are reeling. And when I say we, our entire team is reeling and nobody understands and we can’t wrap our minds around this. And so we’re gonna talk about that as well because of course we want to make sure that this never happens to us again. And then we are always thinking of you, the loves of our lives, and uh, we want we don’t want it to happen to you because it has happened, uh, to people. You were saying a lot, you’ve heard this over and over in your coaching, yes?

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah, I mean there’s not just trial trauma, there’s also trauma that comes from people just bailing at the last—bailing before trial. I’ve I’ve had many stories told to me and and how they’ve had to completely change the way they think with hiring and firing.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes that thinking isn’t necessarily productive. So I hear a lot too from my clients that are like, “I’m never gonna trust anybody again,” or “Forget it, I’m just gonna do it myself. I should have never hired an associate,” or whatever the thing may be, right? And we want to avoid that as well. And of course, you and I went there as well when this happened because we were like, “What the fuck?” And it was shocking. And so that’s normal.

Kevin de la Motte: It’s hard to not take it personally.

Sari de la Motte: It is hard to not take it personally. And so today we want to talk about why this might be happening and again, how you can avoid it. Now obviously when we’re talking about someone else’s behavior, you can’t control that 100%, right? Or or at all. So even the things we share with you today, if someone chooses to do this, that’s that’s on them. But we’re hoping that the things we’re gonna share with you today will avoid this, uh, or help avoid this in the future. So let’s talk about, um, why this is happening first and then we’ll talk about what people can do with it. So the first thing we want to share with you about why this may be happening and it happens before you even hire the person and that is overlooking red flags. So, Kevin, why don’t you take this one. How do we do this and why do we do this in the interview process?

Kevin de la Motte: Well, I mean, people can come in, and they have a really great pedigree, great, um, you know, resume and and then you’re talking with them and everything seems to check all the boxes, but then there’s just that one little thing, “Hmm, very subtle, like, I’m not quite sure about that.” Those little things are really important because that’s your gut trying to tell you that something maybe it’s something happened in the past or maybe you’re even foreseeing something that could happen in the future, but it’s listen to those things.

Sari de la Motte: Yes, and I think we overlook them, in addition, you know, to that we do, I think the reason why we overlook them is we just want to fill the fucking position.

Kevin de la Motte: Sense of urgency. Yeah.

Sari de la Motte: And we’re like, that’s not a big deal, right? I mean, we don’t want to go through more interviews. We’re like, well this person kind of just fits the bill so…

Kevin de la Motte: If you get into a point where you’re explaining or over-explaining things just to hire the person, that’s not good. That’s a red flag.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah, or over-promising things when they’re asking for a lot and you’re like, “Yeah, I guess we could do that.” Yeah. So what one of the things we’ve learned in in doing this many times in our in our company we’ve hired lots of people throughout the years is that as we have made mistakes, now someone has to absolutely 100% blow us the fuck away or it’s not even we don’t even consider it. Yeah. When you say that’s true?

Kevin de la Motte: Well there’s also issues there. Because there can be that feeling of like a romantic feeling about the person which can be a slippery slope.

Sari de la Motte: Right, I don’t mean like they have to blow us away with charisma, right? Because that’s the part that we have been blown away with in the past and it has burned us. But they have to be an A+ player.

Kevin de la Motte: Oh, yes. Like we’re not even, we’re not playing. They don’t even get through the door. Their resume doesn’t even get looked through completely unless they check all those boxes.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah, every single position, and this may not be appropriate for you or a small company, we’re under 10 people here, but every single position that we hire, um, I wouldn’t say every single position, but the the big positions, go through a screening first before they even get to me and then they come to me or whoever the, you know, director of marketing, you know, somebody would screen and then they’d go to that person and then our whole team meets them. Because everybody has to get along here and it has to be a vibe check. So they go through three interviews before we even consider them for the position, right?

Kevin de la Motte: And sometimes four like we’re even thinking about if we need to do a fourth.

Sari de la Motte: Sometimes four. Absolutely if it’s a really, really important role. So I think in the past though we’ve been like, well we can grow this person, or you know, they they have this experience and I it probably will be fine and those are the things we’re saying don’t do that.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah. Do not do that.

Sari de la Motte: Okay. Second thing is, they don’t have clearly or the company does not have clearly outlined roles and responsibilities. Yes. So, what are your thoughts on that?

Kevin de la Motte: Well I’ve just had a lot of different conversations with clients where, you know, we start talking about it and that was definitely the big deal. It’s like they didn’t know exactly what they were doing, or the client is not giving them all these things cause they don’t trust them. So then they get bored because they’re not able to do the the more responsible tasks and they end up thinking like, okay, why do I even want to stay here? But a lot of it has to do with just not wanting to let go of the reins on those things.

Sari de la Motte: Oh, that’s such a good point. Is that because of the control, we’re not actually letting them run free, which would actually free us up, but I think we can’t let them run free if we haven’t clearly defined the roles and the responsibilities and the deliverables. I think that’s a huge piece of it. Sometimes I’ll have clients say, well I hired a paralegal and paralegals are paralegals, they should know what to do.

Kevin de la Motte: Yep.

Sari de la Motte: But being a paralegal at one firm is very different than being maybe a paralegal at your firm.

Kevin de la Motte: Yep.

Sari de la Motte: And so even if it’s not different, even if you assume it’s the same or it is the same, you still need to have those clearly out—outlined here’s your roles, here’s what you’re responsible for and here’s what you’re gonna deliver on for every single role. Yes?

Kevin de la Motte: Yes. And it’s not a one and done. You have this conversation at the beginning and you redesign, redesign, redesign, but if you’re always communicating so that it’s clear on what their role is along the process, you have less chance of them taking off.

Sari de la Motte: Yes, for sure. Third thing is, a lot of these companies, and we’ve been there, for sure, I don’t think we’re there now, at least I hope not, um, is that maybe they have the roles and the responsibilities outlined, but they don’t have a clear accountability piece. And that I’ll hear, so when I’m working with a client for example, maybe it’s the same for you, is they’ll come into a coaching session, they’ll be like, “I’m having a problem with my paralegal or I’m having a problem with my associate.” And I’ll say, “Okay, what was the design or what what are the things they’re supposed to be doing?” And they’ll say this and this and this. Well first I’ll say, well they should know what they’re doing. They’re they’re right there, we have not we have not done what we just talked about. And well, that’s not clear. Just cause you think they should doesn’t mean they know they should. But let’s say they say, “No, they know they should. They’ve they’ve definitely got the roles and responsibilities.” And I say, “Okay, so then what’s happening?” And they say, “Well they’re not doing it.” And I say, “Well, how are you handling that?” “Well I’m coming to a coaching session to talk to you about it and complain about it.” And I’m like, okay, well here’s the problem is that the minute that you notice that they weren’t doing what you they were supposed to be doing, there needs to be accountability, there needs to be a coming to the table and saying, why isn’t this happening? What do you think is preventing them from having those conversations?

Kevin de la Motte: A lot of it is they’re just too busy. They’re overwhelmed, they’ve got too much going on and they’re like, I just don’t want to talk to them about that right now and then it just keeps stacking up. Next thing you know it’s this huge problem that they could have been addressing piece by piece along the way.

Sari de la Motte: Well I think and in addition to being too busy, I think it’s kind of a cover for I don’t like conflict.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah.

Sari de la Motte: Guess what? No one likes conflict. Actually, I said that in a coaching session this week and one of the persons I was talking to was like, actually I know people who like conflict. So, that’s true. There are some psychopaths that love conflict. But I think in general most of us hate conflict. And I think the way to reframe this is to not think about it as conflict. It doesn’t have to be conflict. When we think about employees who are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, I think and then we automatically think well I’m gonna upset them. And instead I want it to be I want them to be successful. And of course they want to be successful. And if they don’t they shouldn’t be working for you.

Kevin de la Motte: Well I’ve got another note on that. In that it’s not it can also be that it’s not the thing that you should be doing anyways because you said if you’re not the conflict person or the person that does that, I mean there’s attorneys and and and clients that I have that they’re strong suits are that they’re great with the clients, they love that inner personal relationship stuff and conversations, but when it comes to this kind of stuff, it’s very hard for them. And then we get in a conversation like okay well who in your office can do this well? And then that person’s the one who’s in charge of that. Not you.

Sari de la Motte: Yes. Yes. That’s a whole other conversation but it’s so true, right? It’s like, why are you doing this in the first place? And now in some smaller firms that it will fall under the attorney, but other some smaller firms that it will fall under the attorney, but other…

Kevin de la Motte: But I have clients that say well like oh man, he’s he’s the hatchet man or whatever. He does that stuff.

Sari de la Motte: Right. But I do think it’s a skill that they need to also learn. And I think it’s also helpful to reframe it in this is helping them be successful which can only help everybody in the long run. Because you want to find out, for example, I think the accountability really needs to be super from the beginning because if you continue to come to the table with okay we still haven’t gotten this done, it becomes clear early that this isn’t the right role for them. And as we always say, you want to hire slow and fire fast. And that will help you with that. Instead of now you’re a year down the road and you’re like well I really never had these conversations and…

Kevin de la Motte: Well if you have those touch points on a regular basis, then it gets to the point where you’re both um in this understanding of like, yeah, this isn’t working.

Sari de la Motte: The person’s just like I get it, I think I’m gonna go.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah, and I think this is why people leave without notice cause they’re like I know my boss is not happy with me, but I don’t really know how to fix it. Um or they don’t care to fix it. And then boom they’re out the door. I think happy employees are I mean nobody loves getting feedback that things aren’t working well, but I do think in a healthy environment when you’re working with employees to be their best and find their zone of genius and put them in the right roles and and have clearly outlined objectives, they’re happier. And they’re also more clear whether this is a job for them or not. And you’re very open about being okay with that if it’s not the right job for them. We’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

Kevin de la Motte: One other thing I was just gonna say there. You’re setting the tone for the communication too.

Sari de la Motte: Yes.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah. So then they’ll be more communicative.

Sari de la Motte: They can say, okay I know you want it this way but I have a question.

Kevin de la Motte: Absolutely. Because when you’re clear about what you need, that’s just helpful.

Sari de la Motte: Clear is kind, as coach Jody used to always say.

[Ad Break] Sari de la Motte: If you’ve been learning and practicing the H2H method whether that’s in the H2H Trial Academy or here at one of our command the courtrooms and you’re wondering what’s next, let me tell you about our H2H Mastermind program. This is a program that’s invite only where I invite six trial attorneys to work with me and coach K over a year. But I’m interested if you’re interested. Meaning, I’m now looking for people who want to be on the list to potentially get an invite. Look for the link in the show notes and let me know if you’re interested in mastering the H2H trial method. I’ll be in touch shortly. [End Ad Break]

Sari de la Motte: Um, okay. The last one of why this is happening is sometimes you do everything right. There are no red flags. The person is a perfect employee. Your team loves them and it just fucking happens. Not that I’m talking from experience or anything. Jesus Christ.

Kevin de la Motte: Jesus Christ. Sometimes that happens. That just happened to us, right?

Sari de la Motte: I mean I can absolutely sit here and say there are many times with many employees that I overlooked red flags, hired the person anyway, and it didn’t work out and that is so on me. But in this recent case, we have gone through everything. Our whole team is, they’re everybody’s looking in their brain because this is what happens when you’re ghosted. Don’t do this. It’s a cowardly, shitty thing to do.

Kevin de la Motte: It’s very painful.

Sari de la Motte: Very painful. Very painful. And the only thing I can do is release this person with love in my heart eventually because something must have happened that that personally or otherwise and if so I I really hope they’re okay. But you can look back, and we always do, like what did we miss and we really looked and we’re like, we didn’t miss anything.

Kevin de la Motte: We done the autopsy or whatever you want to call it and we cannot figure it out.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah. Alright, so, how do you avoid this? Well, obviously we want you doing the things that we just talked about. So we want you to not overlook those red flags. It’s truly a gut thing and you were saying this is true even with clients.

Kevin de la Motte: Oh yeah.

Sari de la Motte: Yeah, so how do you how do you listen to that gut more, would you say?

Kevin de la Motte: Well, I mean, I would just say that a lot of the people that we’re talking about and talking to right now in this podcast is that they’ve been doing this for a while. And they know the things that they’ve gone up against that weren’t quite right. So when it comes to cases, every time I ever talk to a client about when they say um you know this case I have a nightmare client? Or I this case was great, and but the client’s a mess. It’s I hear that a lot like I love the case. I hate the client. And the clients, there’re all these red flags but you know what the case was so good. And but they they knew. They knew right right away first thing. I mean, we’re talking like first couple sentences.

Sari de la Motte: And you know it in an interview too.

Kevin de la Motte: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Sari de la Motte: So, obviously we want you to trust your gut and don’t override those red flags. Obviously we want you to have the roles and responsibilities clearly outlined, that’s not what today is about, and have that accountability. Again I’ve done an EOS podcast on accountability. So if you want to go back and look at that. But there are three additional things we want to talk about that you can do to help avoid this again you don’t have total control. The first one is to change your mindset. So talk about this a little bit in terms of the changing from, you know, once I find the right person, they’re going to be here forever. So talk about how important it is to not have that mindset.

Kevin de la Motte: Well, and I had a client tell me the other day, and actually I was being transparent and talking to them about what was going on. And um, I I had talked about this and he said, you know what, there’s something that I there is a phrase that I have that I’ve always stuck with after, you know, and he told me some traumatic experiences with people leaving.

Sari de la Motte: They are traumatic. My goodness.

Kevin de la Motte: Totally. He told me about them and he said, you know, they’re just not—don’t think that they’re ever a career employee. You know, they’re never going to love your business as much as you do. And that attachment is so unhealthy. So that’s the first thing that he tells himself or no matter how great they are in the interview or if they leave, they weren’t a career employee.

Sari de la Motte: And most people are not these days. They are going to move on and we tend to look at that as some betrayal or they aren’t loyal and that’s not necessarily true. People do things for their own reasons and are on their own path. And it’s not a fun thing to have to continually uh fill spots and I believe when you do have the the accountability and the clearly out um outlined roles and responsibilities and you’re finding people’s zone of genius that they will stay longer. But if you come in with a mindset that people may not stay and most likely will not stay forever, that’s gonna be easier. Which leads us to number two, which is…

Kevin de la Motte: Well and I want to say just the phrase it’s the cost of doing business. It really is.

Sari de la Motte: It is the cost of doing business. Absolutely. So number two is don’t take it personally. Very closely related. What are your thoughts on that?

Kevin de la Motte: Well, I mean, of course, you know, it’s your business, it’s your baby, you know, and I’ve talked to you about this. Like when you’ve taken it personally and I get it. It’s like I mean this thing you built this thing you grew this thing. And people come in and they’re excited about your business and they seem like they’re all ready to go and then all of a sudden they they cut and run. But to not take that personally going back to it’s your business it’s not theirs. And they didn’t leave for some reason that they’re some vendetta it’s just it’s not personal.

Sari de la Motte: Or they’re horrible, or whatever. So, I think there’s two two kind of branches here of taking it personally. I think on one way we take it personally like how could they, they’re supposed to, you know, love my business as much as I do. But I think the other way where I go a lot is we blame ourselves. I was a terrible leader, what did I do wrong, I must have forced them out of here. And I think you know some of that looking inward and being like how can I improve if there is, but that can be really unhealthy and I’ve been there for sure. So, don’t take it personally. People do things again for their own reasons. But the big one we wanted to talk to you about today is this idea of a completion conversation. And it’s something that we did after this happened, uh, that we’re now going to do when we bring on board people. And so we’ve talked to y’all about completion. I did a whole thing or I think we did a whole thing on completion at the end of season eight and how important it is to complete well in various places. But when this happened it didn’t just happen to us. It happened to the whole team. And we came in and Kevin took charge of this and basically said to everybody, I want you to notice how we’re all feeling right now. This feels horrible. And the reason I bring that up is because we don’t want this to happen. We understand that y’all probably won’t be here forever. We want you to be here for a very long time. Don’t get us wrong, but we know that everybody has their own life to live. And what we want from we want to communicate is that we want you to complete well. And what that means is, obviously the two weeks. But what it also means is that if this isn’t the right role for you and you find a better role, we want to celebrate that. Now that’s very backwards, right?

Kevin de la Motte: Put your money where your mouth is.

Sari de la Motte: And it really I think changed our team where they were like wow. Like because once we had this conversation somebody gave us their two weeks.

Kevin de la Motte: Right that day. And we were like, are you kidding?

Sari de la Motte: And then we were like, actually that’s amazing.

Kevin de la Motte: It is, yeah.

Sari de la Motte: That’s kind of amazing. And so we’re having a cake for this person who I am really sad to lose and it looks like we’ll probably still have a relationship that goes on after this.

Kevin de la Motte: Of course we will. Yes.

Sari de la Motte: And so we wanted that person cause they came up to you afterwards and they’re like that really resonated with me and I’ve been thinking that I need to move on and it was actually really beautiful. And it ended up being very beautiful. And we are literally going to celebrate this person who’s leaving. And you’re like, oh my god I would never do that cause then people would all want to leave.

Kevin de la Motte: I don’t think so.

Sari de la Motte: No. I think the difference is it’s like what we say with jurors. It’s like, you know, the design alliance and you promise that you’re going to do everything in your power to let jurors go, should they not want to be there. And we always get the question, but what if I have a good juror that says they don’t want to be there? How do I keep them? And I said, they’re not a good juror. So same thing here if this person feels like it’s the time or any of your employees feel like it’s the time for them to move on, you don’t want to keep them just to keep them. That means they’re no longer in the right space for you to to work in your business. And not only, you know, is it a good relationship to celebrate their next, you know, journey, but it’s good karma I think. I I think energetically it’s so much better and easier on you to release them with love and celebration, have a good exit interview, see what you can learn, um, than to be like, well fuck them. Bye.

Kevin de la Motte: It makes a clean, clear transition for both of you.

Sari de la Motte: Yes, absolutely. And so what we decided after you did this great, um, talk on completion and the team really got it and really understood it and we are putting our money where our mouth is and we are literally celebrating this person who’s leaving, um, who was amazing and has been an amazing employee, is that we’re going to start this when we onboard now. We’re going to have that conversation about completion and that should this not be the right role, we want to keep that really open and end it before it’s too late and we will celebrate them in that decision, as hard as that is for everybody.

Kevin de la Motte: Yeah.

Sari de la Motte: So, we learned this from this. We learned a lot of things from this. Um, our team is changing and it is growing and I think we are sad that this happened, but right out of this came a a great example from one of our other employees of how to do it right. So it was actually really cool to see someone who did it wrong quote unquote and then someone do it with a lot of integrity and love and so I think on some level even though we hate losing the second person, it kind of gave us more like trust back in the humans, right? Like people are integritous and you don’t have to go down the rabbit hole of oh my god everybody’s horrible and they’re all gonna leave.

Kevin de la Motte: I think it was a beautiful growth experience.

Sari de la Motte: Absolutely. For us and for our team.

Kevin de la Motte: Yep.

Sari de la Motte: So we hope this helps. It sucks when people leave without notice. We’re learning, we’re growing and I hope that this will also help you learn and grow. And if you do have one of the scenarios like we just had where someone just up and did it and there was no red flags and you had the clear responsibilities and the accountability, that you just give yourself a lot of grace, a lot of love and keep moving forward. Alright. We’ll talk next week.

[Music Playing] Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na Stay in my lane Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na Stay in my lan