The First Night of Sleep is on Me, But the Second is on You!

Hello, this is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thanks for tuning in. Please subscribe on our YouTube channel
and give us the benefit of your thinking in the comments.

This week, I want to talk about an intriguing article that we got from Masonry Magazine. It's written by one of our clients,
Damian Lang, great guy. Damian proves that not only do nice guys not finish last, nice guys finish first, just a super all
around guy. He wrote a terrific article with the intriguing headline, The First Night of Sleep is on Me, The Second Night is
on You. So, I saw that, had to read the article and it turned out it's just filled with wisdom. So, let me bring this wisdom to
you.

Why is it important? Why is this important to you at all? Well, Damian makes the point in his article, that you spend as
much time with the people at work, maybe more time, he says, than you do with your very own spouse. So, you're going
to see why that's an important thing here in a minute. He has three simple rules. Now, let me start off with a caveat.
Probably no one watching this blog, no one in the construction business, or any other kind of family business, started off
doing what you're doing because you wanted to manage people. But now that's where you find your... as you go up the
ladder of success in life, guess what? It's less and less about the tasks and the things you do, and it's more and more about
the people you build, the people you cultivate, the people you interact with, and how you do it.

So, Damian has three rules for how he works with people in his organization. The first one is no friction in the hallways.
We'll talk about that some more. The second one is no, let's say, difficult people allowed. He doesn't use the word difficult
people, but hey, it's a public blog, I can't say the word he used. But we'll talk about that. No difficult people allowed. The
third thing is the first night of sleep is on me, the second night is on you, which I think is really interesting. So, let's, let's
elaborate on Damian's three rules for how he manages people in his organization.

First one is no friction in the hallways. So, some of us have high antenna as far as reading the pulse of the organization.
Some of us, you know, me are not good at it at all. Damian, I think is very good at it and he talks about if he walks down
the hallway in the organization and he can feel any tension, any people or department or whatever, he's going to address
it right away because probably the stress is coming from him or other department heads, right? Stuff rolls down hill in
business, and I think that's probably true.

If an organization, if people, if departments are feeling stress, if there's tension in the hallways, then it's probably starting
with the leaders who are feeling stressed or just pulled in too many directions, or they've got problems at home, or
something else. The most important piece of this is that Damian says you need to address that right away. The longer you
let these issues fester, the bigger the problems are going to get, and the other tip that Damian has, and I agree with 1000%
is that when people start leaving your organization, that is a clear and present danger, especially in today's world, where
everybody's looking to hire and retain talent. When people leave the organization, it's probably because the leaders in the
organization are not functioning at full capacity. He says that when people leave, they're not leaving their jobs, they're
leaving their supervisors, and I think statistics and studies would probably bear that out.

All right, the second piece, no difficult people allowed. I love this. There was a book just if you go to Amazon and look for
it, a book, I can't say the title. Robert J. Sutton is the author and it's The No blank Rule. Basically, life is too short. Damian
uses the example of, if there's a rotten potato in their basket, it's going to soon infect the rest of the potatoes, and pretty
soon the whole crop is ruined. It's the same thing with people. If you've got a difficult... if somebody who's just a jerk, a
tyrant, somebody who just can't get along with other people, try to fix that person, get them some help, get them some
training, get them some coaching, whatever it might be.

But if that person is not able to take that medicine, to take that coaching, to take that learning and turn that into a more
positive direction, that person needs to go. One bad apple, right, that's the old saying. That's the old cliché, and I think it's
all too true. Life is too short, and our time is too valuable to put up with people that are jerks, or difficult, or troublesome,
or always filled with drama and stirring up drama in the workplace. You can't have it, we won't have it here. It's just too
emotionally exhausting and it's just not worth it. So, no difficult people allowed. I love that rule.

The third one is the first night of sleep is on me, the second is on you. It bears a little explanation. Damian says, little
problems become big ones. Remember in December, Dennis had a blog in Digging Deeper, about having difficult
conversations, the importance of having difficult conversations. Damian says, if there's an issue in his organization that
keeps him up at night, the next day, that cost him a night of sleep, right? The first night of sleep is on me. So, the next day,
he's going to the source of that problem wherever it happens to be in the organization, and he's going to deal with it,
because he doesn't want to lose two nights in a row of sleep. The next night of sleep is on you. In other words, he's going
to come, he's going to bring the problem, you're going to discuss it, you're going to find potential constructive solutions,
and then you're going to act on it because Damian, at that point, he's going to wash his hands of it, subject to monitoring
and all those things, but go right to the source of the problems and deal with it directly because it's just too much trouble
to let these things go. Have those difficult conversations and you won't regret it.

All right, so you've got to keep your people happy. In today's world, you've got to keep your people happy. If you have the
right people on your team, there's nothing you cannot accomplish. If on the other hand, you've got C and C minus players
on your team, that makes life harder for you and all the other high achievers in your organization because you're having
to carry those people. Get the rights... it's the old Jim Collins thing. You get the right people on your bus and you put them
in the right seats and let them help you decide where the bus is going to go.

So, I'd like to know your rules. Damian has three rules. What are your rules for managing people in your organization? And
please put that in the comments and give us the benefit of your thinking. Thank you. This is Wayne Rivers.