Mastering Conflict and Communication: Transforming Adversity into Organizational Success with Joshua Hart

Freddy D: 00:02:04

Hey, superfan superstar Freddie D. Here in this episode 119, we're joined by Joshua Hart, a remarkable communicator and conflict resolution expert whose journey is as inspiring as it is impactful.

Born with early onset hearing and speech challenges, Joshua turned adversity into fuel for mastering the very art of communication, building a career dedicated to helping others navigate conflict and connect more meaningfully.

With a Master's in dispute resolution from Southern Methodist University and nearly two decades of hands on experience, Joshua brings deep insight into resolving miscommunication and transforming organizational culture.

He's the Director of Operations at a public relations firm, founder of Joshua Hart Consulting, a certified mediator, and and even holds an advanced facilitation certificate from the United Nations. Joshua is a storyteller, strategist and facilitator who sees every challenge as an opportunity for growth.

Get ready for a conversation filled with wisdom, real world strategies, and a kind of insight that only comes from someone who's lived the power of communication firsthand. Welcome, Joshua, to the Business Superfans podcast. How are you this afternoon?

Joshua Hart: 00:03:26

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me on.

Freddy D: 00:03:28

Yeah, we're excited.

So let's go back to the beginning and what's the whole backstory of how you came up with the organization that you're with now, which is basically you?

Joshua Hart: 00:03:39

Yeah. So I would say for me, I've always had the desire to want to help people.

So early on I was always wanted to be a police officer or a fireman as most little kids do. And as I got older I started to go into thinking about theology. So my dad's a pastor, my grandfather was a pastor.

So obviously I too have to be a pastor. So I found a good theology school to go to and I started studying theology and I'm going to be a full time man of the cloth.

About a year and a half into that I realized there's other ways to serve that full time ministry. So I ended up going into communications and then I found myself really kind of clinging to family conflict.

I really started falling in love with people that are in turmoil and they're struggling and they can't quite see eye to eye and get on the same page. But again, nobody told me that a 23 year old who hasn't been married and has no kids would be a horrible marriage counselor.

So I ended up struggling for a while, ended up in radio by an accident and I spent 13 years doing morning show radio, really loving all of that. But in the middle of that time period I realized I needed to Figure out what my second act was going to be. Even then I saw radio was kind of waning.

And so I went back to school and got my master's in conflict management and I was going to do mediation, arbitration and go back and start working with families and helping them through those points of time. But I realized that I saw a bigger picture for how people communicate.

And so I got into the generational issues, the company culture issues, the crisis management issues, and have really been doing that since almost 10 years now. Over a decade of working with companies and organizations, helping them when they feel like they're at a loss.

I come in sometimes when they're in full fire mode, sometimes when everything's going great and they just want a quick buffer on company culture. And hey, come in and do a talk about better communication. It's always good to keep people moving forward and keeping all that stuff going.

And then sometimes there's an issue that is broken down between two managers or two employees and I come in and I help facilitate that situation to get them to a better place so that everything can kind of run on time. Wow.

Freddy D: 00:05:50

What a background story.

Joshua Hart: 00:05:52

Yeah. So that's the 500 foot view of the last 30 some odd years of my life. Wow.

Freddy D: 00:05:59

But it's important because it's really brought you where you are today for sure.

So that's the important part of it is that those experiences and those challenges really positioned you to be able to do what you do in a much better way. Because you have a different perception of things that had you not gone through that journey, you wouldn't be there.

Joshua Hart: 00:06:16

Yeah.

And you know, I often tell people when they're talking about like, oh, what was crisis management or what was your master's degree like in conflict management? And I go, hey, you know what, that actually helped me individually more than I think. It helped me like prepare for a better future.

Like, it helped me learn how I communicate, how me and my wife communicate. The things that I was doing. The non verbal cues, which is like 80% of a communication is non verbal.

The non verbal things that I was doing that wasn't aligning with what I was saying. And so I learned how to just communicate better as a person, which I think would be better if everyone could do that and learn how to communicate.

Learn when they call it getting triggered.

I know there's a different term for that now, but in crisis in conflict management that you have your triggers which are things that start to get you upset. So learn, hey, here's the things that can get me to Go down a path that I don't need to be on.

So when I'm starting to feel that way, I can go, hey, what? Can we take a quick break?

I just need to go get some water or a cup of coffee, take a lap around the house or around the building or around the block, and I can come back and I can level my head a little bit and we can continue on having a conversation and I can go, hey, you know what, Freddie? I think we're on a great path. If you could not bring up X, y and Z moving forward, I don't think that's helpful to this conversation.

And let's just stick to the task at hand. I think being direct like that, it really helps move the needle and those kind of things.

So, again, my ability to work through all of that has helped me help others.

Freddy D: 00:07:43

Sure. And you bring up a really good point. I want to reemphasize is taking the time out.

And I think going for a walk, I've done that many times where I was frustrated with things going on in the office, whether I was running the business or I was an employee. And I would just go for a spin around the building.

Joshua Hart: 00:08:03

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:08:03

Or back a long time ago, there was inner building connected. So I'd go walk around and go to the bathroom in the other building. 10 minute walk.

Joshua Hart: 00:08:11

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:08:12

And by the time I came back to the office, it was all gone. I was good.

Joshua Hart: 00:08:16

Yep. You get like that immediate nervous energy out. You're able to kind of go, hey, let's sit down. And let me address this. Just so you know.

I don't want to take this path of conversation right now. I'm not saying it's off limits forever, but for right now, I want to focus on this particular thing.

And let's try to stick to that as we move forward.

Freddy D: 00:08:33

Yeah. Because then you get stuff accomplished versus getting into a verbal confrontation that goes no place.

And the task that you were looking to work on doesn't get done.

Joshua Hart: 00:08:44

I remember I got called in one time, and crucially, when the owner calls me, it's never a great thing because they never have the problem. It's the team. So of course. Yeah. And so he was like, hey, can you come fix my team? And so I was like, yeah, sure.

I said, are you seeing the most amount of like, 20 toxicity or conflict or issues? And he goes, during our morning meetings, boy, they're starting off with it. That's not great. All right.

So I came in, I said it on one of their morning meetings. Just a fly on the wall, came in, sat down. He introduced me as a consultant that they were working with.

And just to be normal and just a level of immediate aggression and pent up frustrations and vigor that they were spitting at 9am I didn't say anything. I just sat there and there was name calling and shouting and screaming and you know, shut ups and all that stuff. And they left.

And he goes, see what I'm talking about? And I was like, that's you. He's what do you mean? And I was like, you're not correcting any of that. And I was like, it's a bad analogy.

But you're the dad in this scenario. These are all your kids. Do you allow your kids to talk like that when they're at the table? Well, no, exactly. Allow bad behavior to happen.

Bad behavior happens. Hurt feelings lead to people feeling defensive. They feel defensive, they then act accordingly. They walk in, full armor, full sword.

I'm going to battle. Any slight attack on me is met with full on fighting. I said, because you're not setting the ground rules from square.

Freddy D: 00:10:11

I experienced that a couple years ago. I was running a company and I really struggled to get it resolved. And it really never did get resolved.

Even though I went in and did training on different personality types and triggers of choice of words. You got a driver personality communicate to an amiable personality. And those two don't communicate very well because this is get to the point.

And this one, I want those stories so complete opposite communication. But it starts off, the issue was that people came in with that body language was the part that set the tonality of it.

And then it just spirals out of control because just like you said, they come in with an attitude.

Joshua Hart: 00:10:54

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:10:55

And even though they don't say a word, you can tell, look, arms crossed, looking straight ahead, not paying attention to anybody. And it just makes everybody feel weird and it just snowballs. It goes out of control very fast. You're absolutely correct.

Joshua Hart: 00:11:11

So that was one of the things that we worked on, the way that we were able to help that we didn't do the personality test. What I did do was I made everyone put outside of their little cubicle, when you greet me, I want you to be to the point, be brief, be whatever.

So if you're going to their cubicle because you need something, you have to follow their rules for their cubicle.

Freddy D: 00:11:35

Addressing their personality.

Joshua Hart: 00:11:37

Yeah. Yep.

So if I'm going to someone else, even though I may be direct, straight to the point, getting it out, but they go, hey, I want you to ask about my family. I want to have a conversation. Talk in complete sentences, like those kind of things.

Then you know what to expect and you know what you're supposed to be doing. And so there was that component of it. And then with the worst offender, the guy who was doing the name calling, he did get let go.

Just to set a standard. I told him during the termination, because we gave him full severance, like, this isn't your fault.

You were a person who was allowed to behave poorly for a long time and I'm not sure you're able to get trained. So I hope in your next job that you go into, you realize this is not how you treat people. This isn't how you talk to people.

This isn't how you behave.

Freddy D: 00:12:20

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely spot on. Because one person, and this is important for listeners, can poison the whole company.

Joshua Hart: 00:12:30

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:12:31

One of the things I talk about is that energy, that negative energy creates a tonality. You get a prospective customer calling in and you got someone that's really unhappy about the workplace and everything else. You can't hide that.

Joshua Hart: 00:12:47

No.

Freddy D: 00:12:47

It's going to come across from the phone. It even comes across. People don't realize it comes across in the words you choose in your email or text message.

You can tell that it's just worded with frustration. And that doesn't create what I call super fans. Because now you got a prospect that says, huh, you know that that was a weird phone call.

I'm not sure about this company. Or you got an existing customer, it's got a problem and the person just doesn't really care.

And did I really make the right decision with this company? Maybe I should look at somebody else. I mean, these things happen.

Joshua Hart: 00:13:23

Yep. And I think that's a really big. It's hard to teach emotional intelligence for the why.

I think, like the people that you see out on the road, like good salespeople. A good salesperson isn't someone who knows your services and can pitch it and can persuade you and trick you into buying something.

To me, a good salesperson has high emotional intelligence and can talk to you and make you feel like you're being heard and can hear the concerns that you're having and then know how to match those concerns with the offering that we have. Here's the itch I'm hearing you talk about. Here's the solve that can work for that out of the way.

Freddy D: 00:14:00

Well, let's go further, because I've been in sales for long, long, long time, is it's really a conversation of what their objectives are. A good salesperson doesn't really promote product.

They're looking to understand where that company is going, what are their goals, what's the objectives, and then how can you help them achieve those objectives. And sometimes it may be that now that you understand your objectives, the solution you got is not the right solution.

And you gotta be able to say, you know, what I have doesn't work, but I know someone that can. And you end up creating a superfan out of that customer.

Even though it's not your customer, you got credibility to up to the wazoo and they're going to refer you when they know somebody that may use your service or all day long.

Joshua Hart: 00:14:48

That's a great point. So again, I don't have a sales team and I'm kind of a one man shop.

I work for a couple of other companies that I sit in and I help them out on different projects. Some of them for a year or two, some of them for four or five years, just kind of depends.

But I'm still always kind of selling myself on the back end. But I'm not really selling myself as much as I'm hearing what they're looking for. There was a customer that wanted me to teach dei.

I have the knowledge to teach dei, but also I'm smart enough to go, hey, you don't want me in front of your 200 employees talking about diversity and inclusion. As a middle aged white guy, it's a really bad look for you. Free tip that that's a bad look.

But I have a guy who does this all day long, is great at it. Let me go ahead and refer you to him and he can get it done for you.

And that guy has referred me two or three other clients outside of that that have worked exactly for what I do.

Freddy D: 00:15:39

Became your super fan. You validated what I just said?

Joshua Hart: 00:15:42

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:15:42

He became your super fan because of your credibility. And in turn it came back tenfold.

Joshua Hart: 00:15:49

Yep. Yeah, I think one of the things for me is I don't do any advertising.

I really can't market the companies that I've worked with because most of them when I'm coming in, I'm signing NDAs because of the things that I'm handling, they don't really want advertised. So all of my stuff is word of mouth.

Hey, you help so and so and me and him are in the same CEO networking group and maybe you could help me or hey, I always ran into this guy at the club and he gave me your car. You know, it's all that which is great.

Do you think I work really hard at making sure I don't leave until I have made sure the person that I'm working with feels better in some capacity. Like, I can't solve everything, but have I made it better than what it was?

Are you at a point right now where you are able to operate without feeling that? A lot of CEOs I talk with or managers that I talk will talk about when they walk in the door and they just feel knots in their stomach.

If you don't feel that, I think I've done my job. And it may not be perfect. There may be tons of issues that are going on, but you don't turn the Titanic in a day.

It's going to take a couple times, and I'll go ahead and schedule me out for six months from now to come back in and we can do a tune up and then turn a little bit more. And then maybe four years from now, everything is going great.

But I think a lot of things I see that people make the mistake of in this field especially, is they want to come in and go, I want you to fix everything. And I want everyone to be holding hands and singing Kumbaya and loving each other. And that doesn't always have to happen.

Freddy D: 00:17:17

It's not going to happen. Yeah, it's not right away. Yeah, it's going to take some time.

One of the things that I've seen, and I'm sure you have too, is really, it all begins in the beginning. It's how you bring on board people. I worked with a company and they would bring people on. They would train them verbally. Okay. No sops, no nothing.

Just verbal training. And then they turn them loose.

And then a week or so later, they'd be making some mistakes and instead of pulling them aside and saying, hey, here's why you should do it. I know that you're new. They would get chastised. I showed you how to do this last week. You got trained on it, but it wasn't in private, it was public.

And so you know what that says? That says everybody got chastised. And so that starts creating a negative environment in the company.

And then we were wondering why everybody was leaving every 90 days.

Joshua Hart: 00:18:14

Yep. The best system I've ever set up was basically a choose your own adventure. Because I think everyone knows how they like to learn.

It was a company that I was able to go through. And you could choose. I learned better by listening, by doing, or by watching.

And they could choose their own adventure of how they Wanted to get trained. We had three different protocols and modules to work for either one of those.

And at the end of it, they had what they called box training, which would basically run you through all the issues that could happen in the course of your day. And you had to be able to execute all of those things successful. I think they had like a 90 percentile.

If you could hit 90 percentile, then you were fully trained, you were able to start taking on clients. But until that point in time, you touched no clients.

And then if you failed your training, they would go back and talk to the trainer and go, hey, what do you think? And. And a lot of the times about halfway in, it was a three week, a long training process. But that's what the ownership wanted to do.

They were very big on. I want you to be ready to run by the time we put you in the hands of paying clients. Because we don't want to screw up. Because you'll lose business.

Lose business.

Freddy D: 00:19:19

And that negative word of mouth travels faster than positive word of mouth.

Joshua Hart: 00:19:24

Yep. But yeah, they were able to do all that. And I think that has been the one that I've seen that have worked the most effectively.

Cause they know themselves and so sometimes they're wrong.

And about halfway through it, like week two, if they're not meeting the quota for the things they should know for aptitude, we would adjust the training. Hey, actually, I think you're better actually doing. Let's go ahead and sit down. Let's start working through these modules together.

And so you're getting able to get firsthand experience of what you need to have done. That one worked really well. And it was weird. I went back and I talked to him about a year later. After that, I said, hey, how many people?

Because the one that I thought was weird was the teaching. I was like, how many have chosen the teaching? One where they just get taught what to do. He goes, only one. But they excelled at it. So there you go.

I thought that was a non starter for me. I'm a hands on. I want to get in, get dirty, break stuff, put it back together and then run.

Freddy D: 00:20:15

So would you say that company's a super fan of you from the program that you.

Joshua Hart: 00:20:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. I've had lots of repeat business where they've called me in on a crisis.

So they heard somebody who heard somebody or they heard me speak somewhere and they saved my card and they hit a wall, someone's threatening to sue them, or there was a big fight in the boardroom and they're going to have to fire someone, they think, and they want me to walk through what that's going to look like and feel like. That's one of the things that someone has told me before. Like, what's the difference between you and legal counsel?

Legal counsel tells you how to best avoid being sued. Right. I don't do that. I'm not a lawyer. I help you navigate what's going to help you long term with your company culture.

And those are two different things. Yep. Sometimes me and legal are on the same page. Sometimes we are not.

I'm like, hey, this is a better financial move for you to terminate this person for whatever reason, but it's going to kill your company culture. It's going to kill any trust that you have garner with anyone else.

And to me, trust is the thing that I hold the most sacred for the teams that I directly manage on a contractual basis. I hold that secret. I want you to be able to trust me that when I say something, I mean it.

Freddy D: 00:21:27

It stays with you.

Joshua Hart: 00:21:28

Yep. I have put my neck out before for someone that I thought needed to have my neck put out for them.

Because I have said, hey, if you do this for me, this is what will occur. I didn't throw them to the wolves. I didn't say, oh, nope, they screwed it up. It's their fault.

I put my heck out and said, nope, if you're going to fire them, you're going to have a much bigger problem on your hands because it's not fair. And I think those kind of things for middle management is important to develop trust.

When I'm teaching middle managers, it's like, hey, you need to be the one who stands in front of bosses or whoever and go, hey, as long as you do what I'm asking you to do, I will take the heat. If you get out of line, if you go and do your own thing, if you go off the reservation, I can't help you.

As long as you're following protocol and you're meeting expectations and you and I are in sync, I will never let anyone come in and and fleece you over a mistake that was made by me. That's where I see a lot of middle managers who are afraid of getting in trouble, and so they have no problem. Oh, that wasn't done right.

I can't believe John screwed that up instead of saying, hey, you know what? That was a decision that we all made. Yeah. John didn't do it the way I would have done it, but it met the criteria for the work that was being Done.

I'll stand in front of that. That's going to be on us as a unit, not on John. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:22:47

Years ago I was fortunate. I went through Dale Carnegie's management training and one of the things that I learned was that as a manager, you don't manage people.

Your job is to empower them. And you're the go to between executive management and the team. And your job is to make sure that your team can do its job to its best.

And just like you said, you're also the backstop. And when you empower people and you make them think of it as their own business for that department, their whole mindset's different.

Yeah, their whole approach is different.

Joshua Hart: 00:23:28

I, I was laughing, I was out talking and I remember I was telling about a time I was meeting with a family run business. You know, dad, daughter, wife, son, they all were the higher ups in the company and they were talking about, you know what?

We want to have a company of leaders. We want to have a leader mindset company. They read all the books and they're like, hey, this is what I want.

I was like, well, great, let's get it done. But they didn't want that because they didn't want any pushback.

They didn't want anyone having any ideas outside of what they wanted to mandate what the actions were going to be. That's not a leadership mindset. Leadership mindset is me being okay with you doing a task the way that I would never do it.

But the goal is to get into the end zone. I don't care if you run, pass, walk backwards, jumping jack, sprint cartwheels, doesn't matter. Yeah, if you get in the end zone, it's a win.

They wanted to micromanage how that process, you can't do that and expect to have a company of people who are leaders.

Having a company of leaders is hard because you got to deal with people who are very opinionated about how things should be and why it's important to them. And you got to compromise and negotiate. And for some leaders, that's a bridge too far. Like, why do I have to change what I want?

Because they're the ones doing it. So that's why I say, hey, they're the ones that have to do it. So here's where I want you to end up.

Here's the timeframe in which you have to get there, don't break any laws, but other than that, go crazy. And if you're not, I think you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself for things that you can't control.

And you're going to be stuck in the same position quarter after quarter after quarter, just micromanaging the five teams or the max level that you can do, managing those teams, trying to get them to run the plays you want to run.

Freddy D: 00:25:15

And the other thing is that you can put somebody in a position that you don't think would actually be very good in that position.

And a lot of times they will surprise you because they'll step up their game and all of a sudden think differently and come up with solutions and ways to handle it that you would have never thought. They came up with it. They own it. It's their idea. And I've taken to the point where I've says, hey, man, that's a brilliant approach.

You know, thanks for coming up with that. And they feel like a rock star.

Joshua Hart: 00:25:50

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:25:51

And the company ends up scaling.

Joshua Hart: 00:25:53

Yeah. And that's the beauty to me.

So whenever I have people who are coming in here and they're upset and they're nagging me about whatever, and this process sucks, and this, hey, great, fix it. I'm not married to any of this. This is what I think would work. It's the way that I would do it if I was in your shoes.

But if you got a better way, let's do it.

And I think that kind of mindset and that kind of leadership of empowering people, and then again, knowing that as long as I see the attempt and the tries there and they fail, failure is fine. As long as there's intention, like I am here was what my intention was. I'm not just, like, shooting in the dark. I have a strategy. I have a plan.

It was thought through, it was executed. It just didn't work. I'm fine with that.

What I'm not fine with is not trying and just sitting back and waiting for things to happen that that don't happen. And those are the people that tend to leave the organizations that I'm consulting.

Freddy D: 00:26:46

With until weed themselves out.

Joshua Hart: 00:26:48

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:26:50

Because the people that you do empower, and then they start to come up with ideas and take their department and grow that department. I've worked with a company where the person almost quit twice, talked her out of quitting because of the owners of the company.

And then when I took over the company, I empowered her and says, okay, you're going to somewhat run this department. And she's like, what, me? Yeah, huge. And she was dealing with depression issues as well. And I started giving her more responsibilities.

And then I turned around, says, okay, come up with ideas to, you know, how can we grow this department? And we grew that department from under $100,000 in revenue in a year to $225,000. And she was instrumental in that.

Joshua Hart: 00:27:37

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:27:38

And that wasn't what the position that she was hired for. I moved her into that position because she wanted something more challenging. And I just empowered her and that's what happened.

Joshua Hart: 00:27:48

Yep. When I go into, like, companies, organizations that I don't understand, I don't understand the tech world very well.

I'm not a tech savvy guy, but I've gone into organizations that were very heavy coding and tech and all the IT stuff. And I'll be meeting with people and they're like, why are you talking to me about managerial stuff? You know nothing about what I do.

I don't have to know what you do. I said I have to give you the resources to do it. We have to know what the end result is going to look like and what it's going to accomplish.

As a matter of fact, it's probably best that I don't.

But we're going to agree on a timeline, we're going to agree on a course of action, and we're going to get all of this stuff done and we're going to push forward. And at the end of the three weeks, when we be back, if everything is done, thumbs up all the way around. But you're an adult. I'm an adult.

I'm going to keep each department doing what they're supposed to be doing. And if you need something, come to me. I'll get you whatever it is I can to move everything forward. That's all.

I don't have to know how to code to manage a coding department. I managed a web team for a year and a half.

I know nothing about building websites, but I know how to do organization of, hey, we're going to be building this. Let's settle an agreement of how long it should take to make a page with X, Y and Z. Okay, so now this is an X, Y and Z site.

We all agree that takes two days. Okay, great. Two days, four days, five. So six days. This should be done. We all agreed. Okay, let's go.

I just know how to put it into a big picture and get all kinds of stuff run and then make sure that we're communicating properly along the way and building better communication systems to make sure everything works.

Freddy D: 00:29:21

I think some things that managers overlook is. And one of the quotes in my book is, people crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition. And I don't think it's given enough.

In corporate America, we take things for granted. And one of my other quotes is the little things are really the big things.

And turn around and saying, hey, Joshua, I really appreciate that extra effort that you put in on this particular project. And you know what?

I want to take a moment and I want to get everybody to recognize the fact that because of Joshua's efforts, we punched through this particular challenge. You know, recognizing everybody claps and all that stuff, you feel like a rock star.

Joshua Hart: 00:30:01

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:02

But what that does is that empowers everybody else. They go, wow, this is a cool place.

Joshua Hart: 00:30:07

Yeah, it changes the dynamics, changes entirely. You can do a lot of things. One of the things that makes me different by most people in my field is the whole conflict management, crisis management.

You got a lot of tree huggers, a lot of people who are like hippies and peace, love, and let's just sit down and we're going to have the talking stick. And if you're holding the talking stick, then you can proceed. And that works well for some groups.

The groups that like me are the groups that go, I don't have time for any of that. I have time for real database results. And there's tons of data that shows if we're communicating better, we're operating better.

If we're operating better, we're making more money. I work really well with those kind of CEOs because I have said before, and I'll say it again, you can be a jackass and be a good leader.

It's not a requirement to be a nice guy. To be a good leader, you have to be consistent and you have to be clear. They can work with everything else.

You can have a perfectly fine company culture with the boss being a little bit prickly, and that's fine. But it's a matter of I know what to expect. I'm not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde coming in every day.

And it's a different person, a different attitude, a different feeling. I know exactly what to expect. I know what he expects of me and what she expects of me.

And I know when it's supposed to get done, you can work with that. And so that's where I think I'm a little bit different in that regard. I'm not a conflict avoidant.

I'll jump in, roll my sleeves up, let's get into it. Because I don't know you can actually solve it until you get into it, start playing with it and pulling things apart. That's how you can? Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:31:42

How this works, as we were talking before we were recording, is that whole environment transcends to everybody. So if you're dealing with suppliers, that negativity is going to affect the suppliers. It's going to affect your distribution.

Or if you got a complimentary business, or if you've got an ancillary business, it affects everything. If you work with contractors, that's another one where people shortchange contractors. Well, they're just a contractor.

Well, you know, you got them on board for a reason. You know, they may not be an employee, but they're a contractor. And guess what? They represent your company.

Joshua Hart: 00:32:22

Yeah, that's. That's one of the things that people don't think enough about is they go, hey, the little things don't matter. Little things matter a ton.

And when you short a contractor, when you're being cheap, the people you don't have that, you don't think people are watching people see, there are very few things that happen inside an office that no one knows about. There's always somebody knows something, and in the moment, someone else knows. It is a wildfire.

That's a good site, and it drops like lightning, and that sets the tone for who you are. There's a guy who I know that for a long time was the janitorial staff. They hired him.

It was a separate contractor that would come in and do it, and it was helping somebody out who needed it. And he wasn't great at it, but, you know, he had two kids who were going through some stuff, and he was trying to get some things under control.

And I think they were trying their best, but it wasn't great. But that CEO kept that person on payroll for much longer than they had to because he knew the impact that they had with the families.

The different departments knew about him, knew about what was going on with his livelihood, knew how important the health insurance was for his family. And so he basically had to have a supplemental person come in and pay a little bit extra just to know that.

I think it meant a lot to him not to throw him out on his ear because he didn't quite get the glass clean. But also at the same time, he's like, hey, this is important to me as well.

So he just supplemented and had someone come in and do the things that he wasn't doing right and paid a little bit less as the whole thing kind of worked out. But that was a big conversation, like, hey, I want to get a better janitorial service.

But this guy's kind of bonded Himself with the company, and people know him and know him by name and know about his family. It feels like it could go bad. And that's the difference between a law firm and me. Law firm's like, go ahead, you're fine. You can fire him.

ere'll be no blowback. He's a: 1099

This will be a feeling that goes around the office.

Freddy D: 00:34:20

Sure. That sets a negative tone.

Joshua Hart: 00:34:23

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:34:23

And that. And then everybody starts wondering, well, geez, what happens if I go through an emotional situation? What's going to happen to me?

It's kind of weird how it is in this country and having traveled to so many different countries, things are so different here. You don't make your sales quota. Whatever it is, you're most likely put on a plan, and if you don't make it, you're out the door.

Joshua Hart: 00:34:45

Yep.

Freddy D: 00:34:46

In Europe, for example, you could have been with the company for, let's say, five years. Keep it simple.

Joshua Hart: 00:34:52

Okay.

Freddy D: 00:34:53

You've been with the company five years. You've been top sales guy. Now you're going through a divorce. Life happens. So your head's not in the game.

People over there are going to go, well, you know what? Joshua's been on for us for five years. He's going through some stuff. Let's give him some space.

And they give you the room to get back in the game here. We don't have that compassion.

Joshua Hart: 00:35:19

Yeah, well, I don't think we have the room. Everything has to be growth. If your quarter is stagnant, then what's wrong with you? And so that's part of it as well.

And that's a bigger issue, probably for a different episode. The mentality. The mentality of if you're not constantly making money, then you're failing has gotta be something that we address as a society.

Freddy D: 00:35:40

In the US you go to Japan, they think 100 years out, they go 100 years out. That's their plan. Then they work things backwards, but they're playing the long game.

And so that's where I learned some of that, was the fact that, a, they've been with us for 10 years. They're going through a life event. Give them some space, they'll be back.

Joshua Hart: 00:35:59

Yeah. Everything in America has to be 300 miles an hour. And I have often told people, hey, if you're going 300 miles an hour, there are no small accidents.

If you're going that fast, you break stuff really fast. And so that's why it's so important to have good strategy. It's important to have a good plan.

It's important to have your communication model set in place. Hey, if you are starting to feel this way, here's where you go. Here's what you do. This may or may not surprise you. I work with a large.

They have, like, 3,000 nationwide employees. And I got called in because the one department that they said, man, we struggle with this one department.

We fired everyone, bring them all back in, and it's still broken. Like, no one knows what to do.

I sat down with them, and my first meeting, there was, like, five people in this department, and they were admin roles, they were assistants. None of them knew who they reported to. None of them had any idea who their direct supervisor was.

Freddy D: 00:36:52

That's a problem right off the bat.

Joshua Hart: 00:36:53

Yeah. Yeah. They all had guesses of who it was. They were all wrong. One person thought it was him.

If he thought he ran the department, it was just utter chaos. Because you take people whose job is to support your sales team, and you throw them and go, hey, it should be easy. You just support the salespeople.

But they had no idea who to report to, what was right, what was wrong, how to do it. No training, because they thought, you're just the assistant. So the salespeople will tell you.

Well, the salespeople were barking out orders left and right, mad that stuff wasn't getting done the way they wanted to get it done. Because Scott likes getting his files done this way and his reports back this way. Sally wants her stuff done back this way.

I have solved it in less than 20 minutes. Here's your problem. And they couldn't believe it.

When I was sitting down, going through the team, they couldn't believe that no one knew who the manager was. They have no idea.

You have taken five people, you've hired them, and thrown them into a corner, where it is again, every day they have their vest up because all they do is get yelled at. They get yelled at for eight hours straight, five days a week. And you wonder why they quit. I'm surprised they've lasted two weeks. That's baffling.

These are soldiers. You got some great boys over there. So we were able to solve that and fix it and put it in plants in place. But again, they just wanted to run.

Well, when you're running that fast, you break a lot of stuff if you're.

Freddy D: 00:38:04

Not careful and you're going by so fast, you don't see stuff.

Joshua Hart: 00:38:08

Yeah. You don't see it because you're just sprinting. I'm, I'm not worried about my sales assistants. It's a $35,000 job. I'll hire four more tomorrow. But.

Yeah, but nothing runs right because you're not fixing that one thing.

Freddy D: 00:38:22

You're spending more money and using more money.

Joshua Hart: 00:38:25

Yep. Everything gets, gets blocked right there.

So your funnel for execution is zero because everything stops that one $35,000 employee that you talk about. So I love what I do because it's part problem solving, it's part crisis, it's part communication, it's part counselor.

I love the work that I get to do day in, day out and the people that trust me to allow me to do it.

Freddy D: 00:38:47

It's great. You're basically making the machine operate.

Joshua Hart: 00:38:52

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:38:53

Put it in a very simple way, but you keep the machine running.

Joshua Hart: 00:38:57

Yeah.

I'm the really bad mechanic who doesn't know how to fix a car, but I can plug it into the dashboard and go, hey, it says here that, you know, I don't know how any of you guys do what you do in a manufacturing company, but I can tell you where your problem is. Your problem in this part of the company where everything is going to die.

I meet with 10 people, have 10 conversations, and I'll tell you right away what's going on.

Freddy D: 00:39:18

Yeah, Joshua's been an extraordinary conversation. We could probably talk on this for, oh, for hours.

Joshua Hart: 00:39:25

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:39:25

Yeah. So how can people find you?

Joshua Hart: 00:39:28

I really not very social. That's on me. But I am on LinkedIn quite a bit. So it's Mr. Joshua Hart on LinkedIn. You can also find me at Josh hart Consulting on LinkedIn.

You can go to my website, Josh hartconsulting.com or email me at Josh Hart consulting dot com.

Freddy D: 00:39:43

Yeah, we will make sure that that's into the show notes and thank you so much for your time and we definitely look forward to continuing the conversation on another day.

Joshua Hart: 00:39:52

Thank you, sir.

Freddy D: 00:39:54

All right, thank you. Before we wrap, here's your quick debrief. Every conversation focuses on a single pillar of the superfans framework.

Nine road tested steps that turn a spark of possibility into unstoppable scalable prosperity. The nine pillars S start strategic positioning and purpose. You unite stakeholder synergy. P propel magnetic messaging.

E Elevate every stakeholder experience. R Rally referrals and reputation Foster financial fitness. A automate for exponential leverage. Nurture lifetime loyalty.

S scale and sustain prosperity.

Each episode concludes with A Superfan's Success Spark A practical guest driven action distilled from today's conversation that you can implement within 24 hours. Follow the nine episode cycle.

Apply every spark and you'll build a proven playbook for turning stakeholders into loyal super fans, accelerating referrals, reputation and revenue. So here's the Superfans Success Spark. F Foster Financial Fitness here's the top insight if we're communicating better, we're operating better.

If we're operating better, we're making more money. Joshua Hart so here's your action step for to do in the next 24 hours. Audit one reoccurring team meeting for tone and communication style.

Remove friction points to improve operational flow and reduce costly inefficiencies.