How to Train Young Employees Who Have Never Had a Professional Job Before

Kelly Crowe [00:00:00] So we would, I would tell them a lot about evaluations right from the start. I would say like, this is the best possible thing I can do for you. If you have a supervisor who doesn't do an evaluation for you, like then they, they're, they're not invested in you. So we're going to, we're gonna meet in a couple days and we're gonna have an evaluation and we're gonna chat about how things are going and we're going to gonna do it in, you know, in one month and then a little bit longer after that. I think just prepping them for like, this is nothing to be scared of.

Vance Crowe [00:00:32] I'm Nicholas Bartlett, co-owner of the World's first Popcorn Board game Cafe living in Fulton, Missouri. And you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Longtime listeners of the podcast might know that I am the middle child of seven and my six siblings are spread all throughout the world and they are fascinating and interesting people. Most of them are significantly less extroverted than I am and they all have their own projects, they're all things that they work on, things that they are experts in. And today the sibling that is probably most like me and probably the person that I've learned so much from about communications is my sister Kelly. She is going to come on today to talk about a book that she wrote that I think is going to be of particular interest to a lot of my listeners. She has studied and has performed at the highest levels of teaching young people, people that are having their first job that they've ever had as a professional and she knows how to get them to think like a professional, how to become an adult and to help managers overcome what she calls the cursive knowledge where you are have been doing something for so long that you forget how to teach somebody how to do it. So I think many of you will find this conversation interesting and insightful. And if you're managing anybody or doing, going through the hiring process, or maybe you are a person that is going into the professional world, you will probably find this conversation and her book supervision quite interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:02:08] Before we go to the interview, I'm going to bring up the Articulate Ventures Network. This was a group that I started because I had so many people asking how could they support the podcast. So with Ben Anderson who has become a good friend and actually business partner, I decided to throw up the Articulate Ventures network. I thought I threw up a couple classes and maybe have some meetings, but as it turns out, this group is becoming something much more than I ever expected. And in fact is becoming something of a community that I think so many of us have always wanted some shelter from the storm of social media, a place where you can go and practice all of those things that allow you to become a leader, where you get to try out your ideas, you get to say them out loud and get feedback and learn how to become a better speaker and how to give better feedback. This is a group that I have no intention of growing to be huge. I don't want the numbers to scale quickly. What we're doing is we're looking for people that are interested in joining a community and making themselves better and contributing towards making the group better. And I think one of the things that the group is coming to the realization of is if you wanna make a difference in the world, help other people learn how to express the ideas that they have, learn how to get better, and how to open up your ideas to criticism so that you can tighten what you think. This is a really neat group and we are just at the forming stages. And if you wanna be one of those people that helps us set up the culture, that helps us choose the books, like the one over there, seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is the book we're gonna read for book club over a long period of time this month we're reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Vance Crowe [00:03:52] But you can do a lot more than that. You can take classes, you can throw up presentations that you know you have to give for a professional setting and get feedback, or you can just share experiences or ideas and have people give you respectful, honest, candid feedback that helps you become a more full person. So if it's something you're interested in, go to Articulate Ventures. It's a calling only for people that are really interested in becoming a real full member of the group. Somebody that's gonna contribute as well as think and act and explore new and exciting places. We would love to have you so go to Articulate Ventures and look into signing up. So now without further ado, we are gonna go to this fantastic fun, interesting interview with my sister Kelly Crowe, author of the book Supervision. Kelly Crowe, welcome to the podcast.

Kelly Crowe [00:04:49] Hi Vince.

Vance Crowe [00:04:50] So it's not ordinary for me to have my sister on, but you have done something I think extraordinary. Something that a lot of people say they want to do and a lot of people think that they have in them, but you took something that was really important to you and took the time to write it down and make it shareable. And so you just published your book and so I wanted to bring you on and talk all about it.

Kelly Crowe [00:05:13] Yeah, I, I was writing it for years and years, but I had to really just quit my job in order to do it. I kept telling myself like, I would do it, I would do it at night, I would do it later and I just wasn't doing it. I'm sure lots of people have that same experience where they say they're gonna do it or they're like slowly working on it. And then I wrote it and we used to talk all the time when I was writing in and I was super excited and we would bounce ideas off each other, but I like included a lot of stories in it and I just felt really self-conscious about that. Like, I don't know, once you put something in writing down and put it out there in the world, I just,

Vance Crowe [00:05:59] Oh, I know I've spent the last worried about four days having people take what I wrote and all, you know, smash me all over social media. So I can only imagine when you've printed it in a book. And now that seems somehow more permanent than almost anything else you can do. So why don't you talk about the book. What is the name of the book and what is it about?

Kelly Crowe [00:06:17] Sure. It's called Supervision or Supervision and it's an innovative guide to being the supervisor when your employees are young and inexperienced. So I wrote it based on my experience at Southern Illinois University and the University of Hawaii supervising mostly college age students. I had some, some older professionals that I also supervised, but mostly like Ja, big teams of different positions and different categories of students, anywhere from freshman students to senior students. Occasionally there would be a student who was non-traditional student, but mostly they were in the like 17 to early twenties age range. Some of them, this was like their first job or their first real job. And I just wrote it about really trying to be perceptive about what a, what a student, what a young employee needs from their supervisor and to try to answer those questions for you, try to get in their minds and say like, this is probably what they're thinking, this is why this happens. And then I tell like kind of how to get started and I talk about the train the way that I did creative trainings with them and I talk about the all kinds of things that I did wrong and things.

Vance Crowe [00:07:41] Yeah, I think the thing that your book really does really, really well is it overcomes the curse of knowledge, right? Like, yes,

Kelly Crowe [00:07:47] Once

Vance Crowe [00:07:47] You've been in the world and you've been working for a long time and you're like, ugh, doesn't everybody just already know how to do this and shouldn't, you know, when you're supposed to show up to work? And that's just common sense. And they forget that there was a time in their life when they didn't know what to do and, and like they didn't even really know how to ask. And you forget, like you talk about in the book, like people are embarrassed to to ask what should I do next? Because they know that everybody around them thinks like, well you should just already know what you're doing.

Kelly Crowe [00:08:16] Yeah, I really think the concept of the cursive knowledge has been the biggest game changer for me just as a supervisor in general. I think just understanding that concept. I teach it to people all the time and I, I wish that more people, especially people really high up in leadership would remember that, that people are constantly new. You're constantly having new people and also like they have these meetings where they solve things in these meetings and then it's like, well that's done solve that. And so they feel like everybody knows it. No, you had this conversation with all of you and then like a few other people, but you forgot to tell the rest of us. And I, I really think that being conscious of that has been a huge game changer for just for having happy employees, for being successful.

Vance Crowe [00:09:11] Remember your book opens up with a very interesting way you start talking about like basically the first day and how you should think about orienting your employees. And this is one of those things that people, I, I know I've been in the position where I go to hire somebody and you're thinking like, oh my God, I had to go through all this HR work, we had to hire 'em, you know, now we've got 'em here and then you don't, you don't think to prepare. And so maybe they have a desk that you know you're gonna see them at and like, that's about it. So walk us through like the beginning chapter. 'cause I think that's when I was like, oh my God, she's right. I would never have thought of these things.

Kelly Crowe [00:09:46] So I talk about the kinds of things that they're trying that they, the kinds of things that they have questions about. I talk about the impact of really what that first day is like when I first started at the, the university, well, so I fir I started in the, at the end of a year and we could talk about that crazy story of how that all went. But on their first day of training when we had a new brand new year, I really wanted to make the help them see that like, this is important, this first day is so important and I see it as important too, and I'm not, I'm not gonna be distracted. And we we're not just gonna everybody grab a bagel and an orange juice and then like for student housing, we usually have these big, big big trainings. It's not like you just start by yourself. And so we, I ended up hosting this big banquet with actual like China and flowers and had it like all set up so that they would see like, oh, like something different's going on here. And just from the second that they get there, they're like, okay, like this is gonna be different. We're not just shuffling through somebody's really intentionally thought about my first day and what it's gonna be like. And I think like that's part of it. Another part of it's preparing the other people who work at the organization to say like, Hey, we have these new people coming on.

Kelly Crowe [00:11:22] This is what their job is. This is how you can help them. This is what they're not supposed to do. I think that's a big one. 'cause other people who work at an organization are like new people. All right, well,

Vance Crowe [00:11:35] Oh, there's always somebody that's like, oh, now I got my guy. I get to slide in there and get copies made and all kinds of bullshit. Oh yeah,

Kelly Crowe [00:11:43] Somebody to do my data entry. This is perfect.

Vance Crowe [00:11:46] So the thing that struck out, stuck out to me was you get a new person and you decide like, oh, my job is to go around and introduce them to everybody. And so you go introduce 'em to like 45 people and there's always that joke of like, oh, I'm not gonna remember their names. But then you forget like, actually they're not even gonna remember where the bathroom is.

Kelly Crowe [00:12:07] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:12:07] So what, what's your advice there? Like how should you introduce a, a new person to an office? Like what, what are, what's the way to go about this?

Kelly Crowe [00:12:18] The best way I've found is to, if you can have pictures of people and then their names and then you just give that to the employees. Some people will never look at it. You are always gonna have employees who are like extra superstar go-getters and they're gonna go home and they're gonna look at that and they're gonna read that. I mean probably you would've been like that and just 'cause you wanted, you wanna do a good job. So they're gonna try to okay, make little memory tricks for themselves. And it puts, sets them up for success right from the start so they're not reintroducing to themselves to somebody like for the second time. And then, I don't know, just kind of explaining like, hey, this is what this, this is this person. But not like a whole spiel about like what does this person do? Like that's too much like,

Vance Crowe [00:13:06] Yeah. And it always turns into like one of those things where the two people already know each other so they're giving like weird compliments and there's always inside jokes and the other person, the new person is sitting there and if you're new and you've never worked at all, that's gotta be like, am I supposed to be remembering this? Am I supposed to be taking notes? I don't wanna take notes if I'm not supposed to. Like I think of it as like you forget what it's like to want to be cool or to want to fit in because you've been in a place for so long.

Kelly Crowe [00:13:34] Yeah, that's why I made the the new guy notebook. So it's like, hey, you've got this green notebook or whatever it is and like you're expected to bring it around with you and everybody knows you're supposed to be writing stuff and it, 'cause otherwise you look like a schmuck. If you're like, wait just a second, lemme write that down. Like you look like. But if they're like, Hey, I know you're new and I know the rule and you're supposed to be writing that down and then takes away a little bit of the embarrassment of it.

Vance Crowe [00:14:00] So talk about the experience of leading big groups of young people. Like what are the things that stick out to you that people don't realize that new people don't know and how to get them all started and up and running?

Kelly Crowe [00:14:12] Oh, well I think they come with a variety of, they're, you know, just like anybody else, they come with a variety of knowledge and experience and excitement. I think the excitement's probably one of the best things. They're usually like, wanna do a good job and they're not totally burnt out on like, oh work, like, just have to do this. Let's see how to get them started or what do they not remember? What do they need? I, so one of the things I would do would be to, you know, I would train people year after year after year and I would just, whenever they have a question, I would secretly write it down. So then I started having these, maybe like on their second day I'd be like, Hey, I'd just gather a group of new ones and say like, do you want, do you want, do you guys have any questions? And of course they'd be like, no, no, no questions, none. Then I would just pull out this magic list or try to do it from memory. Like, well what about this? Like, would you be wondering this? And they're like, yes. And then you just keep going through the list. And I just kept asking things that people asked in the past and they felt like, it seemed like I was reading their minds, but I'm just, I'm just, they're just not either not comfortable asking and or not thinking to ask. A lot of times new employees will save up all their questions till it's like a good time to ask, well like when is a good time?

Kelly Crowe [00:15:45] They're just waiting for like, oh, just let it go. And then, and then like, too much time has passed and then it's like embarrassing 'cause like, well what were you doing all this time if you didn't know?

Vance Crowe [00:16:00] I thought that one of the interesting parts about your book, was it still in the beginning was when you said like, don't forget to tell people when they're allowed to go home. And I was like, hell yeah. Oh yeah, because you do not want to be that guy on his first day being like, would you mind if I go home? But you also know that person doesn't have anything to do and they may like, so talk about that kind of stuff. That's the stuff that I thought your book was so mind blowing because it was thousands of those little things that you just don't think of.

Kelly Crowe [00:16:29] Yeah. Forgetting, not forgetting to tell them when to go home. And if you, if you constantly check in with them at the end, you know, and they're, they're new and you check in with them, then they're gonna expect that they can't go home until you check in with them. So if that's the way that the rule is, then you need to tell them not. But if it's like, no, when this time hits like you, you can just go home and you kind of forget that the way that high school is, if they're coming from high school, like they have to ask to go to the bathroom. Like why they don't, we we're so used to just being able to just do whatever we wanna do. So I think it's a matter of like what, like if you want a break, can you just get up and take a break and you need to tell somebody who should you tell? Let's see. When can they kind of just like, where a be like they don't know like where to be while they're not doing anything. Should they, like, should they just be following you around like a puppy? Should they just sit here, shouldn't you? They, and they get constantly told to like, oh, go fetch this or go get that. But then like, they don't know, like it takes 'em forever and it's embarrassing because they're wandering around, we've all done this. You're like, I'm just gonna find it. I'm just gonna fake it and I'm just gonna figure it out. And then they're like, you know, something that should have taken five minutes, like 15 minutes later. They're like,

Vance Crowe [00:17:56] Huh. So one of the things that you're particularly good at is getting groups to, to come together. And I think it's because you have like a knack for understanding that people have different styles. Like I I tend to just be like, oh, everybody's like me so we're just gonna do it my way. And that's something that really strikes me in the book. Like you talk a lot about the different ways that people learn and like how you can create situations where everybody can learn at their own kind of style.

Kelly Crowe [00:18:24] Yeah, yeah. We do a like, 'cause I did student housing, we did so much training. We had two weeks of training at the beginning of the year and then one week in the middle of the year. That's lot of training, probably much more than the average person has maybe like a few days. But I think, you know, we would do things where you get to really try it out for yourself. You get to have the experience of of doing it. So we would set up these fake scenarios. Like one of the things they have to do is snake a toilet, which means like to get it unclogged if it's clogged. So we, we set up like a working toilet in the middle of the like outdoors and had it hooked up to water and then they would just take turns like go ar like it's your turn and you have to just get in there and do it. And if nobody makes you do that, you're like, okay, like I can do it. Sure. Like, no, you don't get to move on to the next station until you do it because there's gonna come a time when you have to do this by yourself. And you've said like, if we let you go then, then you're not gonna know. So being just sort of forced to like, to really try everything and then seeing their other coworkers also trying it and just having the, I think a lot of new employees don't have experience, so you have to create experiences for them to, to be able to know, like, you know, if you had a new employee that was helping you out as a new dad, like let's say they work in some store, they have no idea for the most part like what your experience would be like if this is like one of your first outings and like things are like, you're having a, like a things aren't going as planned.

Vance Crowe [00:20:21] I'm sleeping about an hour and a half a night. Yeah. I'm like, and I, I don't, yeah, like they don't know I don't need small talk, I just need the answers.

Kelly Crowe [00:20:27] They don't know what you need 'cause they've not been in that position and that's the situation for all kinds of stuff with new employees. They've just never experienced it before.

Vance Crowe [00:20:39] I think one of the things that, that becomes difficult for people that are a first time manager or first time managing other people is that you don't even really know how to do things like give them feedback or how much to correct them because you don't wanna be hovering. But at the same time you don't want you, like, they may be doing things wrong and if you yourself never had a good boss, you don't really know how to give the kind of feedback. So you end up becoming like, you know, the abusive parent that, you know, the, the abusive, the abused child that becomes an abusive parent. 'cause you don't know any different. And it's kind of the same way as with a manager.

Kelly Crowe [00:21:15] Yeah. Yeah. I, it's hard. I think that line in the beginning is especially hard because you don't wanna break their spirit like by correcting them, but they have to know how to do it correctly. So we would, I would tell them a lot about evaluations right from the start. I would say like, this is the best possible thing I can do for you. If you have a supervisor who doesn't do an evaluation for you, like then they, they're they're not invested in you. So we're going to, we're gonna meet in a couple days and we're gonna have an evaluation and we're gonna chat about how things are going and we're gonna gonna do it in, you know, in one month and then a little bit longer after that. I think just prepping them for like, this is nothing to be scared of this evaluation. We, we wanna talk about these things. And you want somebody to tell you like, hey, like how's it going? And, and like one thing for new employees is to let them tell you themselves because they know, like if they, if you ask them like, so what's not going so well? Sometimes it feels better to have that chance yourself than to have somebody explain to you like what you already know.

Vance Crowe [00:22:27] Oh, that's going well's good idea. Like, and if you have a chance to say it in a, in an environment where you don't feel like you're gonna get in trouble for it, like it's almost a get outta jail free card. So you're able to be like, I'm not getting along with that other person, or I don't have enough time to do the things I wanna do or need to do, then, then they don't feel like they're, they have to hide it. And when you get into that hiding relationship, that's when things all go sideways.

Kelly Crowe [00:22:53] Yeah, yeah. I also start asking them to give me feedback, positive feedback on their coworkers, which I think that I, I learned a ton. I I learned so much by asking them like, Hey, tell me something that you noticed about one of your coworkers that they're doing. Well, I noticed that I was giving the wrong people credit for things and nobody was saying anything. You know, you just assume like the person who always takes care of stuff is the one who took care of it. And I, there's just so much as a supervisor that you don't see happening. Like, and you just wouldn't. So they have a chance to say like, Hey, like so and so totally took care of this and it was awesome. And then when you give them that feedback, it feels really good. Like if somebody says like, Hey, hey Vance, I was just talking to one of your coworkers yesterday and they, they know, they like said this that you took totally took care of this and that was, they did a great job. You feel like, really? I didn't even know they noticed that.

Vance Crowe [00:23:53] Yeah. And then you can integrate it into who you are, right? Like when, when you start saying like, oh, that little thing that I did, maybe it was an accident or maybe it just kind of happened that way. Now all of a sudden you can be like, oh, that was so worth it. And nom, nom, nom, it feels so good to get these compliments. Nom, nom, nom. How can I get more? I,

Kelly Crowe [00:24:13] I know, I know, I know.

Vance Crowe [00:24:15] So, so I, I have this Articulate Ventures network. So some of the people that listen to the podcast, they join this network and one of the things that we've started doing is a speaking gym. So once a week a group of people get together and two people give a talk and two people give feedback and they vote on who gave the best talk and who did feedback. And then we do kind of off the cuff answers or questions. And so it's a little bit like Toastmasters, but it's in this digital domain. And you can also, when you're giving feedback, comment on the content of what they're talking about, which is a little bit different, right? And one of the things that people have reached out to me afterwards and said was, I learned more by giving other people feedback than I did giving a speech and having somebody give me feedback because now all of a sudden I have to start processing through like, what did they do well and how can I frame that and how can I, and I think that that's one of the lost arts of communication. Like by putting people in the position where they have to give other people feedback, it ends up becoming far more a mirror about you. 'cause you're sitting there being nervous and like you're like, I I I don't want them to reject it. What if they're mad at me? But I also wanna tell them something important. And I've been told that if I don't tell people something important that I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know how to, and like I think that the feedback mechanism is one of those things that the high up boss can do a lot of good for the middle management if they are teaching them how to give feedback and then giving them opportunities over and over and over and over again to do it.

Vance Crowe [00:25:48] So you get over that adrenaline rush and that, and you start to see like, ah, when I feed it to them this way, they take it a lot better than the other way.

Kelly Crowe [00:25:59] Yeah. And I think like if you are in a, in an environment that gives a lot of feedback, you are, you're more willing to take it. Like if that's just kind of what the culture's like or that group is like that you just know that people are gonna give you feedback, especially if you really value it. Like, I don't know, sometimes with Toastmasters, every once in a while somebody's giving you feedback and you're like, I don't, like, I don't think that you're great. So I don't, you know, your feedback doesn't mean I'll take it, but it doesn't mean the same. I wish that this person would've given me feedback because I really wanna know what they would say.

Vance Crowe [00:26:40] One of the things that we added in this week is everybody in the group now throughout the week as they're thinking about what was said at some point, something you heard during speaking, Jim is gonna pop into your head and now you're responsible if you come, if you think of something to write that person and say, Hey, I was going through this part of my day and this happens because that ends up reinforcing the content of what people are saying and it starts making them go like, really that made a difference. That was just something I threw in there. I didn't, I didn't think. And by getting people into that mindset, I think this is something that you're really good at of, of helping people understand when they did something that had an impact on you. One, just by you recognizing it, it makes your life better. You know, it's just more rich and more

Kelly Crowe [00:27:27] Full. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:27:28] But by telling somebody else, you just like light them up and you build a bond with somebody that you might otherwise be like, I don't have a reason to contact them or be in touch with them. And then that relationship can start building and developing in in really fascinating ways.

Kelly Crowe [00:27:43] Yeah. Especially if you say something really specific. So they're like that like exact saying exactly what you're saying. And I think that you're onto something about like just doing it automatically because we can kind of, I don't know, you have an idea and it feels like you've already done it. Like, oh, I should really tell that person how great they were. Good for me for thinking about that. But then, then you didn't do it.

Vance Crowe [00:28:09] Yeah. I often tell people like that wanna do journal writing, like, so people have asked me before, like, oh, I, I sit down to write a journal and I just don't know what to write. And I'm always like, well, one way you can start is instead of writing it for yourself, write a note to somebody else about a thought you had about something they did and, and try and make it positive or make it as a positive experience if you do that a few times. And I often will write letters and take photographs of them and then later I come back and I, and I read the, the photograph letter and it is just as good as any journal entry because the thing that I'm expressing to them was something that I felt inside of me. And I think people oftentimes when they're doing something for other people, it doesn't feel as like stultifying. It doesn't, it doesn't paralyze you. Like when you're sitting at a blank page where you're like, I don't know if I write this, am I gonna wanna read it in 20 years? Probably not. I guess I'll just quit.

Kelly Crowe [00:29:06] Yeah. I think with our memories are bad too. Like we, we forget the specifics and the specifics are what really matter. So like when giving somebody feedback, I started telling people, when I do public speaking, I would just say, we're not gonna do like a formal evaluation at the end. I'm not doing that just while I'm talking, write down five things. You're not gonna remember more than five things anyway. Just something hits you, you just jot it down and then you just write to me like just five things that you, that you either got from this or that you liked or that you have a question about. Just jot down five things because by the time you get to the end of an evaluation, like a speech, and then they're gonna evaluate you. Like I, you're like, what were they even like, I don't remember what they, you basically you're getting feedback on the end because they don't remember if it's an hour long speech. Really like the specific content.

Vance Crowe [00:30:03] Oh, that's really clever. That's really clever. So there's a subject that you and I, I can never re recount it for people, but it's something that always sticks out to me, is a really interesting way of looking at personalities. And you talk about personality colors all the time.

Kelly Crowe [00:30:18] Oh yeah. What

Vance Crowe [00:30:18] Is, what is that? All of that.

Kelly Crowe [00:30:20] Oh, so this it, so the, the program that I learned was about was called True Colors. And I the who taught the Dr Lo Lo Hong was the vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. And she came in and did a training session about true callers. And what I learned in this, the major thing that's like the biggest takeaway for me, I used to have these employees who would like con constantly just constantly point out when I was doing something wrong all the time. I was like, do you hate, like, is this personal? Like, like I don't, so I'll be standing up there in front of them or we'd all be sitting in a circle and I'd be telling them like, oh, we have this idea, like we're gonna do this new thing, it's gonna be great. And I'm so excited and I'm really thought about this. And I'm like, this is, this is my whole idea. Like I feel like you get like excited about ideas too. Oh, I'm a percent you can

Vance Crowe [00:31:20] Feel like you're describing and now I know this is, my wife is about to jump in here, this is exactly,

Kelly Crowe [00:31:25] And then, and then somebody would be like, yeah, but did you think about this? Which that's kind of okay. But they would also be like, did you know that you have a typo on the third page? Like three sentences down? I'm like, nah, I mean, of course I don't want any typos. Like that's embarrassing and I'm super embarrassed that you pointed out in front of everybody. But like, that wasn't the point. But then when we did this true colors, like that's their superpower. Like that's their thing. They can just, that's the greens. And they can just see they're very, very detail oriented and they can see the, the flaws in something, which now that I did that true colors, I think like of course what a gift that is to have that kind of person in an organization that's gonna find the flaws and that will catch me from sending out this document with typos or, or kind of think about like what could go wrong instead of being like, yeah, no, but then like it could be great. And then, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:32:30] Because that's all I wanna do's. I just wanna stay like, stay up, we're having fun and now we're going somewhere like

Kelly Crowe [00:32:36] We'll figure out like everything as we go and it's gonna, you guys are gonna love it. And then they like, like my style, which is orange, which I think is yours as well. I, I realized like I'm like a tornado, like I'm a nightmare to them. Like they, they just, it's so frustrating. Like that's like I, one of the stories I tell in the book is when they staged an intervention because of my style, because I thought that we would just, we had these two weeks of training and I had all these like, fun things planned. Like we do like fun games and I'd surprise them with things like we'd have dinner like, but it would be up at the basketball court or just little things that I would just surprise them with and activities. And so I was only giving them the agenda like for that day when they got there, they got the agenda for the day, which I would like super organized of me. And like some of the staff that have been with me for a couple years, like, like sat me down and were like, you are driving us insane like this. We can't take it. Like, we just wanna know what's gonna happen and you know what's gonna happen and you're not telling us. So we're just like so stressed out that we just get there every day and we don't know what is gonna happen. Like we don't know what to wear. We don't know like how to mentally prepare ourselves. So it's like, no, you know, I, and now in, in my job now, I could really see like, of course that's annoying.

Kelly Crowe [00:34:12] Of course it is. But I thought it was really fun because that's my personality type.

Vance Crowe [00:34:17] Yeah. Like we're going on a treasure hunt and somebody's taking you on a treasure hunt. Yeah, I hundred percent. Yeah. I can't

Kelly Crowe [00:34:21] Tell you like everything we're gonna do because then you won't be surprised. And they're like, we don't wanna be surprised. Like, no.

Vance Crowe [00:34:29] So there's like the detail oriented people, then there's the people like you and me that are, you know, like big ideas exploding. What are the other types of people?

Kelly Crowe [00:34:39] So there's blue, which is the like usually your caretaker people, like your people who go into nursing professions, just fairy empathetic and sympathetic and they just really feel for people. And so if you're having a big meeting with all of them, they, they might stop and say like, but have we considered what everybody's, how everybody feels and really wanna get into like a whole conversation and, and really take it personally.

Vance Crowe [00:35:11] Oh, and you do not wanna cross the empathy people. Oh man. If you tell the empathy people that empathy is not important. Oh man, watch your,

Kelly Crowe [00:35:20] Yeah. And these people are very, very sweet to work with and they're just someone, like the best people that exist, you know, out there in the world just 'cause they're so, they genuinely like really caring and compassionate. And then the, the gold is very, the gold is the person you wanna give. Like do you need something organized, like organized, organized? Like don't forget, like nothing will be forgotten. The gold has probably been the gold star super student their whole lives. Like they've been in charge of all the projects. They, they will get it done, it will be perfect. And they like if it's, I don't know, we, we did this, we had this way of like scheduling meetings and it, it was worked out really well, but it was like kind of chaotic and just kind of like everybody jumping in and, and the golds like took over and I was like, you guys got this? I'm gonna step back. You're so much better at this than me. They just, they're just like, no, no, we're just gonna whip this into shape. Like we get this, we're going to get it organized details, we come up with a plan and everybody just explained the plan and they, you can't, if you try to just be like, no, like let's figure it out. I was like, go like, no, no, the golds are not having that. If you tell a gold, like if you said, hey, like, do you wanna go for pizza tonight?

Kelly Crowe [00:36:53] And then they like decided, then we decide which pizza place we were gonna go to. And then if we switched pizza places, that would be pretty bad. But like an orange person like me might say like, oh hey, like as we're getting ready to leave, like, I, I heard about this new place, do you wanna go there instead? Like thinking like they'll just say if they don't want to, but like it could be fun. Like right, it could be good. And they cannot, that's terrible. Like why would you do that? That is so rude that you would even suggest that. Like they already planned like to go to the restaurant that we talked about. Like, so they've already looked up the menu, they already have a plan. Like, so when you do that, it's not fun. But

Vance Crowe [00:37:41] I mean, I think my natural personality as you're describing all these is I always imagine that I wanna be surrounded by oranges, but then at the end of the day I'm like, no, I don't want your orange ideas. I want my orange ideas, details, people quiet down. These are good ideas. Don't get in my way. So how do you, how do you manage, like if you're, if you're trying to get together young people whose personalities aren't set and maybe they were the gold star person when they were in high school, they don't wanna be the gold star anymore, but it's a part of their personality. So you've got all these people, they're coming together and maybe it's not they're going into college, maybe they're coming out of college and they're going into their first job. How do you figure out who people are and like how to, how to orient them so that the oranges don't smash all the greens and, and those types of problems?

Kelly Crowe [00:38:28] Yeah, I would do a lot of things where like I would, it's definitely hard. I mean, and you can't just let your, your tendency seep in there all the time. I would, I had them fill out a form that's, I called it supervising the best you. And I would ask them questions like, what is, what's, what's easy about supervising you? Like why would somebody feel like, yeah, like you're great to supervise, like what makes you great at your job? And then I would ask them questions like, what is challenging about being your supervisor? And make them really, I gave it to 'em ahead of time so they could think about it and write it down. And I would really get to know like more about what they like. And I would ask them like, what is your like supervisor pet peeves? And so I get to know like what, what I might be doing that's driving them crazy.

Vance Crowe [00:39:25] Oh, this is great. And we do

Kelly Crowe [00:39:26] A lot of, like

Vance Crowe [00:39:27] A lot of group Go ahead.

Kelly Crowe [00:39:30] Yeah, no, I would do a lot of getting to know each other as the group, but also realizing that, you know, from freshmen to senior, like they, people change a lot. That's part of the process that's supposed to happen.

Vance Crowe [00:39:47] So I, I was, I was just thinking about the, oh, so in the, in speaking Jim, okay, we just did it earlier today, so I'm all jazzed about it. I'm super excited. But one of the things, one of the exercises that we did was instead of you introducing yourself, pretend that you are someone else and introduce you as though you are, you know, coworker or your supervisor, how do you wish that they would introduce you? And it was fascinating because finally you gave people permission to, to set aside the, the, the modesty and really get into the what would I want somebody to say. And then after they've done that, you can say, okay, now imagine somebody ever really did say something like that to you. How would that make you feel? And now think about the next time you go to introduce someone, imagine giving them the introduction that they would always want. And those types of exercises, once you do them, you can integrate that stuff into your life and it makes a huge difference. And, and so I I'm hearing you do these things and I'm like, our brains just work very, very similarly.

Kelly Crowe [00:40:53] Yeah, that would feel really good, especially yeah, when you feel like somebody really gets you and they are really excited about the thing. I think like you, you are a very perceptive person and you often tell people like, Hey, like this thing that you just did, like, you're really good at that. Like, you tell people that all the time. And I don't think that a lot of people have somebody in their life that number one recognizes it and two gets like super excited for the person. Like when they're like, oh, I don't know. And you're like, no for this, you, and it's very, it's very sweet. It's a very sweet quality and it makes people feel great to be understood and to be celebrated.

Vance Crowe [00:41:43] So we're talking about all the fun, exciting orange things, but what about the first time you're ever having to really give somebody criticism like they're going in the wrong direction or they're bringing the group down. Like what are the things that you learned over time to, to deal with those kind of stuff?

Kelly Crowe [00:42:00] Yeah, I mean there are different categories for that. I think some of it was I realized that I've just hired the wrong person for the job and there's not gonna be like a coming back from that. That's rough.

Vance Crowe [00:42:18] We've all been there.

Kelly Crowe [00:42:19] Oh. So that's hard. And it's hard when somebody like isn't really clicking with the group. I think that's really hard to figure, figure out way to,

Vance Crowe [00:42:29] Have you ever been somebody that somebody thought, I don't think we hired the right person for this job?

Kelly Crowe [00:42:34] Oh, not that I know of. Not that I know of, no. I mean like, not that, I mean, I have hired people who like, you know, they're working with students and they turn out to be like dealing drugs or, you know, so like,

Vance Crowe [00:42:53] Well I mean if you're a drug dealer you gotta give 'em credit. That's a good thing to do. Go work with a bunch of students, you get it ready access to a

Kelly Crowe [00:42:58] Large customer. I genius. Yes, I know, I know. Yeah, I, I do like a lot of just, I would meet with people one-on-one like a lot and just have like real chats with them. I've let somebody go who I really, really didn't wanna let go. And I mean those, those conversations are always really hard when you have to give that kind of feedback. But if you don't then it impacts the whole team. Like if you don't, if you don't make the decision that needs to be made, then, then everybody knows that too.

Vance Crowe [00:43:39] Yeah. And then, and then everybody pays the price for the manager not being able to like just do what has to be done. So what was the process of writing the book? Like, I mean I know 'cause I was around when you were first starting it and being the orange like, and you could do this and this and this, but you actually have to put pen to paper. What did you learn about yourself by sitting down and hammering out an actual book?

Kelly Crowe [00:44:04] I think like the, the best thing and the worst thing that happened were the same. Like the best thing that I did was to just not say, I didn't stop myself from saying I'm not sure exactly what I'm gonna do, so I'm not gonna do it yet. Like, so I just started writing things down. I had a bunch of different versions of it. I would just start, I think the original book was about, was really about training. And I considered doing one that would be just on like hiring or just getting started with employees. And instead I tried to like sort of take you from the beginning of bringing somebody on and then like training them and dealing with problems and just developing them. But had I told myself like, well you can't really start until you have this whole thing outlined and exactly figured out for my personality. That would not have worked. Like I couldn't have forced myself to not start writing until I had it like all organized and that, but that was also to my detriment in the end because I kept constantly questioning like, well maybe this isn't right, maybe I should, maybe I should scratch this and just do this. Because I didn't really ha it wasn't like somebody hired me to say, write a book about training employees or write a book about supervising them.

Vance Crowe [00:45:28] So yeah, I think there's a, one of the hardest things for me to do is to either write something down or be creative when I'm not solving a problem. Like if I have a problem I'm solving, that's really easy to do. But if you think about writing a book, you could write about anything. It's a blank page. And so you basically have to, if you work that way, like manufacture a problem that you think will resonate with other people, that actually is the problem that they have. And yet still keep it on the tracks of being specific enough to give people actual tangible things that they can do, but generalizable enough that it applies whether they're at SIU or or whatever school or or not even in school. Yeah.

Kelly Crowe [00:46:12] Yeah. I, I think and the more time you spend with the book, the more you're like, I don't know, does everybody already know this? But it was helpful in talking to you 'cause it would call you up and you'd be like, yeah, no, right on. I remember when I was a student and like when we would just talk about, or 'cause you'd had a bunch of different jobs before, it's really helpful to have somebody to say like, is this something that people like would care about? Because you don't really know and you're just by yourself working on it. It's not like the podcast where you start, but then you're constantly getting feedback so you're like, okay, well this is what people like, this is what I, this is what I like.

Vance Crowe [00:46:52] Well that's, I mean that's a hundred percent it. Like the, the hundreds of hours that I put into the podcast, I get immediate feedback. People are gonna write me, I am going to hear like in every single episode I do, somebody has something to say, positive or negative. They've got advice. I mean, in fact, most of my friends that I've made in the last year that have come from the podcast wrote me and gave me criticism. That was actually really helpful. There's this guy named Joseph Ring, he's a good friend of mine now, but he wrote, and he's very much, I think he's probably a green, like, he was like, Hey, your audio sounds terrible in this way. And I was like, who is that guy? I wanna know who that guy is. And you, you like that is the experience that I got to have while doing the podcast is the iterations that a book is, is frightening in a way because you have to go the entire race and then you're done. And if you get all the way done and people are like, eh, it wasn't really the thing that I was looking for, then you've got that. Then you've got a problem.

Kelly Crowe [00:47:55] Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Vance Crowe [00:47:57] But you do not have that problem because when I, so you sent me this book and I, I read portions of it before, but never in its final form. And like I just sat down and read it. I, I like, I've been talking about it with a bunch of my friends. Like,

Kelly Crowe [00:48:11] Oh, that's great. This

Vance Crowe [00:48:12] Is an awesome, this is, this is fantastic. And so what is the process of of getting a book out into the world? You're, you've, you've put it out there.

Kelly Crowe [00:48:23] Yeah. So I ended up working with different people. Like I hired an editor and actually I hired several different editors and I had some people that hired for different parts of the formatting. 'cause it's in an ebook too, which is tricky. And then through Kendall, Kendall, Kendall Direct Publishing, you can just, you can use their program to publish directly with your ebook. And then if you set up your, the formatting of your book and have and create a cover, then they print books on demand, which is perfect. 'cause before you had to say like, anticipate, I mean, who wants to do that? Like, I don't know how many, like, ah, that would, that would be awful. But this way, like if somebody orders it, then, then Kendall just prints it. They, you can sign up with a, to have a deal with them. So right now they have the ebook that they are, you can, if you have Kendall, you can get the ebook for free. This is like a marketing thing that they, that they do. So that's helpful. If other people are trying to write a book Kendall, like Kendall Direct Publishing is like great, I think was very easy process. And you can go online afterwards and you can see like who, like how many did it sell that day and how, how many pages did people read on the ebook?

Kelly Crowe [00:49:55] And like, who's buy, well not, you can't see who's buying it, but like how many, you know, if you're getting like spikes if you told a certain group about it and then like more people go buy it.

Vance Crowe [00:50:07] Oh wow. That is super interesting. That's actually gotta be a little bit addictive I would guess.

Kelly Crowe [00:50:13] Well if it goes well, it suppose not if it doesn't.

Vance Crowe [00:50:19] And so speaking of books, what was the last good book you read?

Kelly Crowe [00:50:26] Hmm. I don't know about the last good book I read. I think my favorite book is Made To Stick.

Vance Crowe [00:50:34] Yeah. By Dan

Kelly Crowe [00:50:35] And Chip

Vance Crowe [00:50:35] Pete. Why is that, that you told me about that book and I think that book changed so much about the way that I communicate. So what, what did you like about that book?

Kelly Crowe [00:50:44] I mean, that's just perfect for you. Like for our per like it's, it's, it's a lot about communication and how do you get people to understand what you're trying to communicate and how can you say data in a way that people can comprehend it and how can you say things in a way that people will remember it, like it's sticky and they, after your talk, they'll walk away and they can't stop thinking about it and they can't stop talking about it and they just share with you all these examples of exactly how to do it and why, what works, like why does it work?

Vance Crowe [00:51:20] And they wrote, yeah, I, I loved that book and I, that was like the precursor to me really spending time thinking about why does some communications work and not others. Because up until that point, any college communications textbook I'd ever read any, like it was also dry and their thing was over and over again stories and examples that were like, oh, I'll never forget that. In fact, I mean I would say your book is written that way because it's like, tell me how to do it and then give me a funny story that's like, oh, I can see how that would happen. And it's just over and over and over and over again. And then that makes it so it can be applicable.

Kelly Crowe [00:51:57] Yeah, I think the stories really help. I, I was reluctant to add stories and I know you and Dan were both our brother Dan were, were both really adamant. Like you have to have the stories, the stories are what make it interesting, but I just felt like I'm such a, I feel like I feel very reluctant to tell other people's stories and other people were involved in those stories and that's, I think that was a hard part about writing the book and telling stories. Like in the Made to Stick book, he's, they're telling stories that, that you've researched and they've gathered, these are my stories, but a lot of other people were involved, but they don't get to tell their side. I just felt very self-conscious of, of telling people's stories and maybe that's not how they remember it. Or maybe I told too much information like, 'cause they were my employees and you don't wanna out them on things.

Vance Crowe [00:52:55] Yeah, I've always thought you were like way overly sensitive about that. But I appreciate it. Like if I were a person that the story was being told about, I'm sure I would have a level of sensitivity. Right. And I don't know, like my own personality, like I like stories and I like telling 'em and if they make me look a little bit silly, like I don't really mind that much. But I know that like if you're a gold star person and you didn't get a gold star that day, then you really don't like those stories being out there and it would would get them. But I, you struck a great balance here because I think in almost all of the stories you can always see yourself in it. And if you can't see yourself, you can see how somebody would get into that situation.

Kelly Crowe [00:53:36] Well that's good to hear. That's good.

Vance Crowe [00:53:39] So Kelly, this was a hell of a lot of fun. I I've never had a sibling on and yeah, you are somebody that I am definitely patterned to be very similar with. And this is like a, this is a fun thing to do. I'll have to have you on again and we'll talk about all kinds of other crazy things.

Kelly Crowe [00:53:55] All kinds of stuff. Yeah, definitely. I'm, I'm curious to like, yeah, I feel like you, I like to have a good conversation. It's great.

Vance Crowe [00:54:04] And so if people wanted to get the book, how would they look it up?

Kelly Crowe [00:54:08] They can look it up on Amazon. So it's supervision. It looks like I only have the,

Vance Crowe [00:54:14] I have it right here.

Kelly Crowe [00:54:15] Okay, perfect. Well, yeah, well mine is the, the copy that has the gray line through it too, but, and it's an innovative guide to being the supervisor when your employees are young and inexperienced. And my name is Kelly Crowe Crow, like the bird with a knee just like you and you can just purchase it online.

Vance Crowe [00:54:36] Well great Kelly. I hope lots of people do. It is great book and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Kelly Crowe [00:54:40] Oh, thanks for having me on the podcast. That was fun.