Leadership, Teamwork, Communication

This is Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor podcast. We will accomplish our goals through sharing experience, improving tech skills, increasing business knowledge, and embracing life. Let's dive into the next episode. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our series of interviews with Sam McNeil from Song Division. Hopefully you've been following along and have been able to get to know Sam as we've been talking to him in the first three parts. This one is more or less the wrap up. We will come back for one more part that is sort of a bonus. We're going to talk about a couple of things and sort of wrap it up. Basically, he's going to do a little trick for us in a sense. We've talked about this Insta hit and we will come back in the next episode and tackle that. Before that, this is where this part is really a key part of our discussion. To this point, I think you have seen the type of personality that Sam is. We've talked about him as an individual and some of the things that he enjoys and his loves and why that works so well for him and his job and his position and the organization that he's with. Now we're going to get a little bit more of an insight into why he is a good leader. You're going to see a lot of things that he is very quick to note and to add context to some of the comments that we make and some of the areas that we go in the discussion. I think if you're paying attention, you will see, wow, this guy gets it. He understands how to build a team, how a team needs to work and how people need to fulfill certain roles and yet still work together. It may have given you a little bit too much of a spoiler alert in there. I'll stop talking and I'll let him pick it right up. That was even more than I had hoped for because one of the things I've found is that sometimes we give up these things that we feel like that's part of our job but when we realize that, well, we could actually find somebody else that does that and they're particularly ... I run into the same thing when they're better suited to it, that's their thing. It's so exciting. It's win-win. You end up not doing the stuff you don't want to do as much. You have somebody else that does it better and you get to spend more time doing the things you enjoy. Exactly, exactly right. Just to be clear again, if anyone hears this, that's great but that doesn't mean you can go, sweet, you go off and do all that horrible work that I hated doing and I don't never look at it again. Even if you actually particularly like it, that doesn't mean that they don't still need you to help them or to give feedback or to check in and do things. That's something I'm always working on. Everyone's busy. Everyone's doing what they can but being respectful of work other people have done and supporting them and doing what they need so they can continue succeeding is for me one of the main parts about what makes a great teamwork. That was the bonus I got on that answer. I love how you turn that back and that's what makes it a team. You've got to respect what they're doing. You've got to check in with them. You've got to have that. Make sure there's that feeling within the team that hey, we are all in this together. You've mentioned that several times. We are a team. We're in this together. Basically, we all succeed. We all fail together and that really helps. That's what you need to cement a team. You can't be a bunch of divas and have it all be about the individuals and have it work. The whole reason it's a team is if you work as a team, focus on the team, then that's when things start working and falling into place. He said there's a lot of that communication and it even goes back to your challenging customer there is that when you have that communication, when you get that stuff done up front, things work smoother. You're not doing it after the fact. You're heading off problems before they occur. Everybody's on the same page. They have that faith and trust in each other as well and understand that hey, I'm not doing this to be negative or to beat you down or whatever. I'm doing this because hey, we all make mistakes. Let's just look at them, correct them and move forward. There's something that just needs to be communicated so we're going to communicate it and move forward. It's not something that's necessarily a personal thing or anything. It's just hey, here's how we're going to move forward as a team. Yeah, I could talk about that for hours. I just got this disc accreditation and part of that was reading five behaviors of a dysfunctional team. I think the titles actually changed to be more positive but I'm having a mental block. Lynch Yoni, I think his name is. Yeah, Lynch Yoni wrote, I think he wrote two, I think he wrote the dysfunctional teams and he went back and he had a more positive functional team. Now it's like we have five behaviors of a successful team where I liked the old title. It was like five behaviors of a dysfunctional team which is refreshing. You just reminded me that my favorite part of that book is to do with, well firstly trust and then cohesion and organizations being able to constructively give feedback to each other and have tough conversations. This isn't got anything to do with your ability. This is how I would have done that better and this is how I think you could improve. That stuff's hard. That comes back to egos too. It's leaving your egos at the door. Conflict, that's what I'm looking for. People think a good organization should, there'd be no conflict or you should never argue. His argument is no, no, that's the complete opposite. If you have the trust within your team and respect for each other, then there should be healthy conflict every single day which is so difficult to maintain. I'm not saying we nailed that but we do have a very great work. Let's look back at that event. Let's look at what everyone could have done better. Let's pull it apart, really pull it apart. My boss loves the tennis Federer analogy. He's like, you're Federer, I'm Federer's coach. We don't need to spend an hour being told how great you are. You know you're an amazing tennis player. I know I'm really good at emceeing and performing and doing my job. Can we just fast forward that bit and you don't feel like everything I'm about to say means I think you're terrible but we need to get to that. Hey, you missed that mark or you said that phrase wrong. I love that. I don't need the other stuff. He's given me this job. He's flown me across the world. I know how awesome he thinks I am. I like to think everyone within our team knows that we all have huge respect for each other but no one has time for that in a small successful business. You've got to get to the hey, yes, great work everyone but what could be done better? I think a lot of organisations really struggle with that part of it because people just get on their defensive and maybe that's because they aren't given the compliments enough or they're not told how amazing they are enough but you've got to cut through that and you've got to cut through the how can we do better bit which I love but it's not easy. It's uncomfortable. I think there's a balance with that is you've got to give those affirmations at times but then you've got to give the correction or have the tough conversations. I think that's just part of getting better on a regular basis is that you want to have that relationship that pushes you not one that you don't want to have a bunch of yes men around you. You want to have those people that will point out blind spots or show you where you can especially as you get to the higher levels like if you are a Federer or somebody like that there are seemingly minor things that are but you need that to take that next step as you've got to sometimes it's not the big glaring things sometimes it is the little almost nitpicky kind of things but just that little tweak here that little tweak there is what gets you to that next level. Well the little things are the stuff that you know everyone knows the huge mistakes that happened but there'll be little things that I don't know I've done or whoever doesn't know what that they've done because it's so minute but if you take those things with the right attitude like you know it can't be oh gosh we did a great job you're nitpicking about that tiny thing it's like no no like imagine you got that tiny thing right. Imagine just that tiny improvement how much better that would make everything you just got to get excited by that kind of thing. Exactly I mean that's where you got it that comes back to just having that right attitude you have the team builds it you've come into it with that and the team supports that attitude then everybody moves forward and that's a lot of that's actually that's a lot of what Lindsay only talks about is yeah those difficult conversations and having an environment where it's not about not having conflict it's where conflict is safe and it's it's well yes. Yeah you've said it much better than me that's I think it's the word conflict you think oh god you don't want conflict in any part of your life it's like no no you do you want you want respectful conflict you want conflict with people you trust and know and love and people who you know can be can can can be better like if it was someone that we were working with who was just you know not not worth the conversation well you we know we probably wouldn't end up we'd stop working with them but those people you don't bother with but when you when you are up for that conflict it's like that old saying like you know people fight with certain people for me anyway because there's something worth fighting for. Exactly and that is yeah that is some of it it's you know cutting loose when there's when there's people that aren't going to be yeah you're not on board aren't going to accept that yeah then you just have to say okay you know we're going to have to part ways or whatever it is if you're not you know if you're not willing to to do that it sort of goes back to the diva thing if you're not willing for to listen to correction then you're not going to get better so yeah we're that's not who we are we're a company that's going to grow we're going to get better every time we're never we are never perfect we're never good enough we're always going to look for ways to improve and be happy with what we've done but we're also going to look forward you know always always always always always is it that you know it's and celebrate your big victories and celebrate your wins and celebrate your success but uh the second you don't go well where's the next problem and and let's get ahead of that or what's the next opportunity and like yeah it's if you're not if you're not looking up uh well yeah we're also doing a bit of sales training at the moment with an organization called Sandler who are pretty reasonably well known around the world I believe and yeah they're big on are you a climber or you a camper you know you've got to always be going moving on up moving on up like the song would suggest. Okay awesome that'll do okay okay so we've we've teased the insta hit a couple of times through this conversation so it sounds like that's going to be a bonus that we get for this one and so we'll uh we'll test this out so I guess where do you how do you normally run this or how do you want to run it can you still hear me I can but firstly okay that's good so I'm going to ask you now just for the benefit of the audience this isn't I would say song divisions core offering this is something we came up with a few years ago what we normally do like I said is go to a big event get the whole audience to write original songs about their company as a team building experience communication exercise but as part of the fun thing we also do often it's just an add-on or it's something that's really popular at networking events is an insta hit where we were over around the audience and we ask people eight or nine questions and then we write them a song in under three minutes so live a bit of like a photo booth on steroids instead of just a photo you you get a song written about you people film it they tweet it online they do whatever they want with it so I need to ask you some questions firstly so and this isn't set up everyone just so everyone I'm sure people will think well they this is pretty baked but it's not so Rob tell me where are you in the world you're in Nashville yep Nashville and where were you born California where were you where did you grow up California or Memphis love it oh yeah I wish I could I wish I was a really good country musician for this one but I'll do my best that's all right I'll take a blues too if that works okay where is your favorite place in the world now just to be clear that's not doesn't it might be a city but it doesn't have to be a city it might be your parents house it might be your favorite restaurant it might be a beach it might be a lodge in the middle of nowhere like where is just oh yeah this is where I love to be oh I'm gonna go hockey rink oh yes and if I told you that the world wasn't living through a pandemic right now and I gave you a ticket that didn't have a name on it to go anywhere in the world where would you fly to somewhere you didn't somewhere oh you can you can have been there but yeah some of you've been or haven't been that you would love to go for a holiday yeah I have not been and would love to go to Italy oh my gosh I need to do more of Italy but what I've done yeah I've done Rome and I've done Puglia unbelievable what did you want to be when you grew up when you were a kid I wanted to be actually I wanted to be an astronomer I love it that's star that's still with stars right yes yep study stars I would know that what do you do when you're not working actually play hockey play hockey love it if I could do a shout out to someone or even multiple people it might be a pet it might be siblings it might be kids it might be a partner it might be a great auntie who's who could I give a shout out in the song to someone who's important to you you a name or was like yeah would be good a group or a name yeah anything yeah my kids yep how many give me their names okay five it's Tim oh god all right Tim Tim Ian Tom Beck and Ben okay oh I might need four minutes for this one um what do you like to what's your favorite food oh favorite food pasta pasta yeah hard to get past it um don't I need anything else oh yeah what if you've something you've never done that you'd love to do like a bucket list before you die kind of thing something I haven't done going to cruise I think we're good okay and then finally just give me any letter between a and g a b c d e f or g maybe c d e f or g let's do b b so that would be a that's b major for everyone playing at home okay so I need like I said like two minutes I'll do it as quickly as I can so you can either hit pause on the I guess on the recording or you can if we're gonna do it live to show people this is legit then you could just do a bit of housekeeping I don't know that's what I'm gonna do is I'll just sort of vamp for a couple of minutes okay vamp away I'll be back I'll let you know when I'm good yeah let me know when you're good and we will stop there for this part the next one we're gonna come in and he will I'll spend basically three minutes talking through a couple things sort of highlighting a little bit of an overview of what we discussed but also pointing ahead to the value of what they call insta hit and you get to hear Sam put together song and realize that hmm he may have actually a little bit of talent there as well I enjoyed it quite a bit and hopefully you get a kick out of it as well and get a sense for what those sorts of things can do for you to help you stand out again as with a lot of these interviews almost every part that we've had through this entire season I hope you were in a situation where you could maybe take some notes either mentally or you know physically on paper or on your tablet or phone or whatever the heck it is because there are a lot of gems that have come out of these conversations it's amazing as I go back and I'm editing and I re-listen to these things how much useful content comes out of nearly every minute of these conversations these have been some really good interviews and we've got more ahead so I will let you get to it go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time thank you for listening to building better developers the developer nor podcast for more episodes like this one you can find us on apple podcast stitcher amazon and other podcast venues or visit our site at developer.com just a step forward today is still progress so let's keep moving forward together one more thing before you go the developer nor podcast and site are a labor of love we enjoy whatever we do trying to help developers become better but if you've gotten some value out of this and you'd like to help us be great if you go out to developer nor.com slash donate and donate whatever feels good for you if you get a lot of value a lot if you don't get a lot of value even a little would be awesome in any case we will thank you and maybe I'll make you feel just a little bit warmer as well now you can go back and have yourself a great day