124: Your Team Is Losing 19% Productivity — Here's the Fix w/ Expert Lee Caraher

Your Team Is Losing 19% Productivity — Here's the Fix

Most leaders think they have a people problem. They don't. They have a communication problem.

In this episode, I sat down with Lee Caraher — communication strategist, CEO of Double Forte, and author of Millennials & Management and The Boomerang Principle — and she said something that stopped me cold: the worst thing you can do as a leader is let someone be wrong and right at the same time.

That's exactly what's happening on your team right now. And it's costing you more than you think.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Why "end of day" is destroying your team's trust. It means 5 PM to a boomer and 11:59 PM to a Gen Z employee in a different time zone. Both are right. Both are also wrong. Lee breaks down how to drive ambiguity completely out of your instructions so no one can misinterpret what you're asking.

The real reason most workplace conflict happens. It's not personality clashes. It's not generational differences. It's assumptions. Every team needs a common language — and if you haven't built one intentionally, you're leaving it to chance.

Why saying it once is never enough. Leaders spend a month forming an idea, say it once, and assume everyone got it. They didn't. Lee's rule: however long it took you to figure it out, double it — that's how long it'll take your team to fully land on it.

How your team is losing up to 7 hours a week without you knowing it. Research shows that employees under financial stress lose up to 7 hours of productivity weekly — nearly 19% of their output — just from the mental load of that stress. Lee explains why appreciation isn't a soft skill. It goes straight to the bottom line.

The one question you should stop asking in every meeting. "Any questions?" is the worst way to end a presentation. Lee shares the reframe that actually gets people to speak up — and why staying quiet isn't a sign they understood you.

Why intergenerational conflict isn't new — and how to stop fighting it. Socrates complained about the younger generation. So did every generation after him. Lee makes the case that focusing on what every generation has in common — wanting to matter, to be respected, to contribute — is the only way to build a team that actually works.

Ready to Level Up Your Leadership?

Get the GAIN Framework — my free system for leading with clarity and intention. Sign up for the newsletter at seanpatton.me/newsletter and get instant access.

Want to work together? If you're a leader who's ready to stop spinning and start leading with real clarity, book a free Vision Call at seanpatton.me/executive-coaching.

About Lee Caraher

Lee Caraher is a communication strategist, CEO, and professional straight-talker known for her practical solutions to big problems. She runs Double Forte, a national communications agency, and spends most of her time helping leaders say what they actually mean — especially when the stakes are high. She's the author of Millennials & Management and The Boomerang Principle, and a leading voice on leadership, communication, and building high-performing teams that don't hide behind jargon.

Connect with Lee:

• 🌐 leecaraher.com
• 💼 LinkedIn
• 📸 Instagram
• 🎙️ Everything Speaks Podcast

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
What do you do when a team works hard, communicates consistently, and still isn't reaching its true potential? In this episode, communication strategist and CEO Lee Kerriher breaks down why most workplace conflict isn't a people problem, it's a language problem. While saying it once is never enough, and how fixing the way your team communicates could recover nearly 20% of the productivity you're silently losing every single day.

Sean Patton (00:39)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership podcast. am your host, Sean Patton. Today I am joined by Lee Carahur. She's a communication strategist, CEO of Double Forte, an author who helps leaders and teams communicate clearly so work actually works. With over 25 years of advising organizations through growth, change and conflict,

She's known for helping leaders say what they really mean, especially when the stakes are high. She's the author of Millennials and Management and the Boomerang Principle and a leading voice on building strong, no jargon, high performing teams. Lee, thanks for being on today.

Lee Caraher (01:08)
Sean, thanks for having me.

Sean Patton (01:10)
This is super exciting. and very, I guess fortuitous, ⁓ to have this conversation now, because I've been doing a lot of reflection on the clarity of my own communication with clients on branding, even with this podcast. ⁓ so I know I'm going to get a lot out of this, through our conversation and I'm sure the listeners will as, as well. So,

When you think about the, the problems or the struggles in clear communication inside of teams, what do you see as the thing that, know, is there one or two or three things that sort of always are top of the list that we get wrong? Okay, cool.

Lee Caraher (01:45)
Mm-hmm.

Always.

So I think the first is that we come into a team and we assume that our words mean the same thing, regardless of where we came from. And good teams have the same language. So if you come from the Northwest or the Southeast or you have a military background or you don't or all the things, a word could mean something very different to you and me, even though it's the same word.

So the first thing that any good team has to have is a common language, like understanding what, and so we use jargon like end of day, which is the dumbest thing we can possibly say in this world right now. Cause what does that mean? What let, you know, what time's on my end? What actually is end of day, you know, all those things. So every team has to have a common language. So that you, when you say red, means red, you know, 472 from the, you know, the color scheme.

Because I think that most conflict doesn't happen on purpose, right? Most conflict happens because we assume, and you know what assumptions, I they make an ass out of you and me. So that's the first thing, a common language. And then two is to drive anything that is ambiguous out of your instruction. So like I just said, end of day is.

It means one thing to a boomer and it actually doesn't mean anything to a millennial or a Gen Z. And the reason is because, you know, when it was a nine to five work day and we didn't work remote, end of day was nine to five. So five was the end. Right. But the number one deadline for students for the last 15, 20 years has been 11, 59, 59 PM. And you send it digitally. Right.

It was not an option when I was in college, you know, those were not options. So, you know, they get into the workplace and you say, give it to me. end of the day, they're in Hawaii, you're in Boston and they send it to you at 11 59 59 PM from Hawaii. So they're right and they're wrong. And it's our job. Whoever's giving the instruction is to drive as much clarity into those nebulous things that could mean something very different. So deadlines, I think are the number one.

cause of conflict in the workplace. So you just have to drive it out. So it's Tuesday at noon Pacific time by email in a Google link. So you have the date, the time, the time zone, and the format in which you want. And you can't misunderstand that. So it's your job as a communicator, wherever you are, sit in the organization, to drive that clarity into the ask or into the instruction.

Because the worst thing you can do as a leader is to let someone be wrong and right at the same time.

Don't let them be wrong and right. I was right. I gave it to you in 1159. That's the end of the day. Well, it's not the of my day. You you didn't say my day. You said the day. there's, and that is a function, you know, that wasn't as much of a deal when it was just 95 in the office, but it is a total deal today. So common language and specificity. And if we can get those things down. And then the third thing is that we assume that if I just say it once,

Sean Patton (04:32)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Lee Caraher (04:52)
Everyone will get it. And one and done does not work.

Sean Patton (04:53)
Mm-hmm.

Lee Caraher (04:56)
ever.

Sean Patton (04:56)
I know I love that. You know, it came from, you mentioned the, you know, turning in papers digitally and all that. And this tradition is, is still holds true at West Point and at West Point, there's this really cool tradition, called the social run. So like one of your core classes, it's like social sciences, whatever. And so for, they call it social and there's this big final paper and everyone has to do it. It's like,

you know, like a 60, 70 page paper, it's like 70 % of your grade. And over time, after like 200 years of that Westpac, like last hundred years, you know, you would see people and it was do it like 1pm on the same Friday running, you know, with their folded hand. And so they turned it to this really cool tradition where now everyone like dresses up and they line it up like a parade and everyone's cheering and like, you know, there'll be like, you know,

Lee Caraher (05:23)
gosh.

You don't want to be at the end

of parade because what if they're late?

Sean Patton (05:44)
Well,

that's a funny part, right? It's like, you know, like a half hour out before, you know, there's like, an upperclassman who's in a, like a male or laundry cart, like getting pulled like a chariot by a bunch of freshmen, you know, to like turn it in. And it's like this big over the top fun thing. And if you stick around long, if long enough though, the last like 10 minutes is the actual people who are like actually sprinting.

Lee Caraher (06:01)
And that's all.

K.M. Chaos.

Sean Patton (06:10)
who actually are like late 30s and

Lee Caraher (06:10)
Sweating. ⁓ in their pajamas, you know.

Sean Patton (06:13)
everyone's cheering them on. Yeah. So it's a, or that's a cool tradition that still holds true at West Point.

Lee Caraher (06:19)
But that's the tradition,

right?

So you come in and you know, you find out about if you didn't know, I I assume people who go to West Point, they know so much about the traditions of West Point because it's just part of the lore, right? But imagine if you're there and your first time like, what the hell is happening? Like, my God, right? So, but that's the common language. The common language is that you have this lore, that you have this, tradition that is part of your experience. Well, a new person jumping in and they,

Sean Patton (07:11)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (07:22)
They just got maybe they got placed that I know this doesn't happen. What if someone from outer space gets placed at a loss point and they go, what is going on? And for queens, this is true, right? You have a team of 10 maybe and the nine, know, nine and someone retires or someone leaves. Now you have nine people who know everything and a new person comes in. They know nothing. So you got to start all over again and explain to this number person all of the language.

Sean Patton (07:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Lee Caraher (07:49)
all of the traditions, all of the things so that they can participate fully. Otherwise, they'll always be an outsider. That's one of the hardest things you can do when there is no, every team has its own code, you know, it may not be written down.

Sean Patton (08:02)
Mm-hmm. So yeah, so

I, and you know, I recently, just six months ago or so moved my coaching practice under a larger firm called Novus Global. It's been great for me. I've really enjoyed being part of a team. And, but to your point, they have a very formalized onboarding process and they have, they do have a lot of jargon, but it's

Lee Caraher (08:13)
⁓ Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (08:22)
It's codified. They look at it like a glossary. You're like, here's like, here's what this means. And, and so is that, is that something that. I guess my question would be there's trying to maybe avoid having jargon or SOPs altogether. Although if it's something that makes the team more efficient, if everybody's on the same page, maybe it makes sense. So what. Okay. So then if you have that, are you okay with like.

Lee Caraher (08:23)
Yeah, you need it, right?

Yes.

Not everything makes sense, but a lot of it makes sense.

Sean Patton (08:48)
onboarding clear glossary, like someone sees a message, I don't know what that means, like, Hey, reference that. Is that, is that a strong tool to create?

Lee Caraher (08:49)
Yeah? Yeah?

Strong to all. mean, so SOPs, everyone has SOP. There's not a team that doesn't have an SOP like what happens at the beginning of the month, what happens at the end of the month, what happens on Tuesday, whatever they are, right? So even if it wasn't, you know, even if it was a, you know, this is how the month looks. You can, this is what you can anticipate in a month regularly. This, this, and this, because everyone has something, right? And then the glossary, it ends up being something that can be a really binding experience for the team.

Right. so that you don't have to, you have all the shortcuts because you know, my soul in my family, my father's cardiac surgeon, and we didn't say please and thank you in my family ever because please and thank you is implied because Lee, if I have to say please and thank you every single time someone gives me a scalpel, someone might die. Literally that's how I grew up and I got into the workplace and I didn't say please and thank you. And then that was, I scored the worst. I was at Weber Shanwick.

There's 39 VPs or EVPs, same level. I scored the worst on this and I was devastated. I'm like, what do mean I'm the nicest person on the planet? What are you talking about? You never say please and thank you. I'm like, it's implied. And I thought everyone grew up that way. I had no idea. I had to learn how to say please and thank you. So we all have something.

Sean Patton (10:07)
Wow.

Yeah. And we all hear about different cultural backgrounds. ⁓ you mentioned with remote and teams, distributed teams, also with just a global population that is completely mobile now, you have these different backgrounds. And so often you think, well, this person is from

Lee Caraher (10:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (10:28)
You know, somewhere far away, like they're from like Eastern Europe or they're from Africa or they're Asia. So like that's a cultural difference, but here's something that's like, you know, Midwest America just happens to be the daughter of a surgeon. so look at this culture, cultural difference. Wow.

Lee Caraher (10:38)
Yeah

Right. Yeah. We all have a, we all have

things. So I think that's the first, the onboarding onto a team, even if like you're interdepartmental, the onboarding onto a team is super important, super, super important. And then the, guess the last piece is it's gotta, you gotta be, ⁓ it's gotta be okay to ask a question. So when I, in my company, I say, you only get in trouble when you don't ask questions because

We can't assume that everyone understands everything. We shouldn't assume that. Because even though we're communicators by trade, doesn't mean that we're 100 % on it. No one's 100 % on it. So if you get an instruction that you don't understand and you just go forward and it comes in wrong, because probably 50-50, you're getting it right. So that means 50 % of the time you're getting it wrong, which is an F, A, right? You get in trouble.

Sean Patton (11:26)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (11:29)
You know, there's not 50 lashes, but you know, that's when you get in trouble. You get addressing down when you don't ask a question, when you don't have the answer, you know, when you don't know. If you, if people ever say, I assumed, I just look at them and I'm like, really, really? Let's come back. You go away, come back and talk to me, you know, because, because this is a safe place to ask questions. Well, you just experienced with me not getting a question, you know.

Sean Patton (11:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you're bringing up a great point here. It's something that I work constantly with leaders and companies that I work with, which is this avoidance of the uncomfortable conversation. And so that's what I'm hearing in that situation is this person knew they were unclear, probably, you know, didn't ask question because they're, they're trying to avoid the short term discomfort of

Lee Caraher (11:53)
So those three things, yeah.

⁓ yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (12:18)
Maybe showing that

Lee Caraher (12:18)
Not knowing.

Sean Patton (12:19)
they don't know. Yeah. Or even just like exactly. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, just, that's a really great point. That's like, it occurs to me to set that standard early and for individuals, like flexing that muscle as early as possible in your career, like as a student, I was like, get comfortable being asking questions and showing that because you don't want it to show up when you're the VP.

Lee Caraher (12:21)
being the dumb one, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Raise your hand. Yeah.

Right. Well, another way a leader, know, someone who's whoever is leading the charge on this can say instead of saying any questions, because you're never going to question except from Janice who asked questions like right at 59 mark. Janice said, But it's maybe to say, what questions is your team going to ask or what questions should you be asking or what questions didn't I answer? So it's not saying.

Sean Patton (12:57)
Dude, they're frickin' jernesy. We're trying to go home, man.

Lee Caraher (13:11)
It's not saying do any questions like as if you had a question, you'd be the dumb one, which I don't think most leaders don't do that. mean, 99 % of people don't do that. Some people are assholes that way, but whatever. But to ask a different question that lets it not be about them not getting it, but about them being better at explaining it. So, you what's a question I should ask or what's a question that your team might ask that I haven't covered yet or blah, blah, blah. So that at least

Sean Patton (13:35)
Mmm.

Lee Caraher (13:35)
relieves the pressure of being the dumb one in the room. And actually now, if you say something, you're being helpful to the rest of the group. Well, think Janice is going to ask this question. So don't ask it, Janice. Whatever it is. So there's one, be confident in raising your hand. And then two, how can you make it a better place to ask questions in?

Sean Patton (13:48)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (13:59)
if people aren't asking questions. When people don't ask questions, that's when you know they don't get it. Truly. You how many times you've been in a room and you're talking, talking, talking, and everyone's like, yep, yep, got it, got it, got it, got And like, that's how you know they didn't get it. Because no one said anything, you know? So it's a two-way street. One, be comfortable asking a question. And there are lots of ways to do that. We don't have to talk about all the specifics on this, but so that you are confident in it.

Sean Patton (14:13)
Yep.

Lee Caraher (14:26)
And that's important to be confident in your asking questions. I don't mean to sound stupid. I mean, that's the worst thing you can possibly do. Or, and, or, and have asked instead of sending a meeting with any questions, ask a question, different kinds of questions that will, you know, allow people to contribute and find out their answers. Like what's your team going to ask her? What question did I miss or whatever that is.

Sean Patton (14:31)
Yeah.

Hmm. I would love to dive deep on this. How do you get better at more confident asking questions?

Lee Caraher (14:52)
Yeah.

Well, I think the first piece is you, you know, there's a lot of body language in it. Right. So if you're, even if you're just on a zoom, it's sitting up being forward. Um, you know, none of that lying back and go, huh. Yeah. Not being feeling disinterested. If you look disinterested, no one's going to want to hear your question. Right. Like you didn't pay attention the whole time. That's the, that's the message you're sending. So one, your body language is I've been paying attention. I'm moving forward. have a clarifying question.

So that's one way you can code your question. I have a clarifying question. So you're saying that you don't have a general, like I wasn't paying attention question. You have a clarifying question for your role or for whatever it is. So that's number one. Number two is not to say, I'm sorry. And not to say, this might sound stupid. Do nothing that would diminish your question. Because anything that you precede the question with,

tells the listener what you think about your question. So this might be dumb. Yeah, it's dumb. Or really sorry that I didn't get it. You just have no reason to be sorry. If you were paying attention, there's no reason to be sorry. just having that. The most important thing you can do as a participant in that meeting is leave knowing. Leave confident in what you know.

Sean Patton (15:50)
you

Lee Caraher (16:04)
So you're doing a favor to the group when you ask a question, a clarifying question to get more specifics so that you don't have to come back around. You're doing a favor. So understand that you're not the only one with questions. Unless you're the only new person in the room on something that's been going on for five weeks in, you're at the sixth week of implementation. so if you're in a sprint on six weeks and you're the fifth week and you're entering, probably no one else has process questions.

But usually, the majority of the time, if you have a question, someone else has a question. So just be confident that you're asking a question that everyone's going to benefit from. If you have that point of view, if you don't diminish your question by preceding it with, basically, for lack of a better term, infantilizing or emasculating language, you're just going to be heard more. And then if you are paying attention, use your body language to

Sean Patton (16:39)
Mmm.

Lee Caraher (16:54)
demonstrate that you want to participate and you're being responsible by paying attention, all the things, then you're going to get a better answer. Sometimes it takes a lot, and particularly for women, particularly for women, this is a challenge. I'm sorry, you know, it's a long story. You need a cocktail for that. But stripping that language out, stripping that language out,

And you know, what team members can do for each other is, know, Lee, I noticed that you said, I'm sorry before your question. You don't have to say, yeah, I'm sorry. You don't have to say that. How can we be allies to each other to help us be better? Cause if we're better asking questions, everyone benefits.

Sean Patton (17:27)
Yeah, it came up for me. was like, thank you. Don't be sorry. I had the same quote. Thank you for asking that question. Like I, that helped clarify for me, like showing that there's value and reinforcing there's value for that other person. I think that, and, ⁓ yeah, it can be super powerful. Yeah. ⁓

Lee Caraher (17:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a great ally thing, right? thank you so much, Janice. I appreciate that. I'm not really doing it.

Maybe I had a problem with

the tennis last week. Maybe I don't know.

Sean Patton (17:51)
This is a safe space to let it out. We'll let out our frustrations. She'll be our she'll be our whipping boy today. ⁓ Where I just lost my one listener named Janice. Where do you when you when you work with leaders? Where do you find they overestimate how well they communicate?

Lee Caraher (17:53)
This day, Janice won't listen.

I don't know Janice.

Hahaha!

Mm-hmm.

They all overestimate how well they communicate. ⁓ And they all do. And a part of it is because, you know, in general, they're not saying something until it's fully formed, right? If it's a presentation, if they're leading a discussion about the vision, unless it's a real workshop situation where everyone's equal, no matter what, if you're the leader comes, someone comes in, they look at you to know. So they look at you to know.

Sean Patton (18:12)
Okay.

Lee Caraher (18:33)
And unless you set it up to be a more of a workshop situation, then you, would say there's a lot of formation of conversation. You figured it out in your brain, all the things, and then you say it, right? The leader would say it.

But they've just spent a month thinking about this. And then they've said it and like dropping science. And so everybody gets it. But they've had a whole month to think about things, right? With all their different inputs. it, you know, if you put, if a leader puts a month into figuring out a point of view, that you should like count on two months before the other people get it. Because by definition, you're up here. You have all these other inputs and the people around you are

for lack of a better term, specialists in their areas or have specific roles and may not see everything that you see. So for them to understand what it has taken you a month to articulate, that is an unrealistic expectation that everybody could get it immediately what you want them to get. And we get bored. A lot of leaders get bored, right? They figure it out. They're like, this is a cool problem to figure out. We get hired as leaders because we solve problems. And then we're on to the next. Well, that is not the job.

The job is to think about what's next, to bring everybody on too. So you got to land it and then, well, you got to say it and then you got to land it. And landing is not a one and done situation. So I think that's the other piece is not having full appreciation for the fact that not only do you have to figure it out, but you have to get everybody on the same page. And those are not two of the same things.

Sean Patton (19:59)
I'm literally writing this down as a note right now. Well, I guess I resonate with this so much. I've had.

issues. ⁓ and I talked with Mike, this is something I talk with my, one of my business coaches around is because right. Like for example, leadership as you know, whatever you're, whatever you specialize in, you know, whether it's leadership or performance or mindset, know, so I'm like thinking about this and creating systems about my life and my philosophy and reading philosophy and like, how do I, and then, and then you talk to someone who hasn't been in that space and pro and processing, or you've been doing it for 10 years or whatever. And you're like, well, duh, duh, duh. And they're like, not duh.

Lee Caraher (20:33)
Yeah,

Sean Patton (20:34)
Like, what are you talking about? And so.

Lee Caraher (20:34)
not done. Right? What are you talking about? So literally talking to a client the other day about this, you know, thing we've been working on for a year actually came to fruition yesterday. And I was talking to him on Wednesday. I said, you know, okay, I know what you're going to do. You're going to think it's done. You just started. It is out of your it is out now. Right. It's public now. This thing that we've been working on for almost a year.

Sean Patton (20:41)
Really.

Lee Caraher (20:59)
And you're going to want to go into the next, but you're not, you cannot get bored. You can, you have to say this word for the rest of the year. Every single time you talk out loud, you're going to say this word because everyone gets it. I can assure you that we spent a year figuring this out and we've just released it. No one else gets it. I'm like, know I'm sorry.

We can figure out what else to do next year now, but you have, do not get bored. And it's the hardest thing because we've just figured, you know, we solved a problem and we're onto the next. You haven't solved the problem until everybody lands on the plane. So, or lands, lands on the ground. So land on the plane doesn't make any sense, but you know what I mean.

Sean Patton (21:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, man, that, that's a, critical point and definitely resonates, you know, with me. I imagine leaders at any level, but especially the, entrepreneurial thinking leaders, right? Who are next thing, next problem, next problem, next problem. And, I would, so I think it's important to find someone like you or find a great,

Lee Caraher (21:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (22:02)
great ops person who's going to like create systems so that it gets reinforced and you can be empowered to stay visionary or remind you.

Lee Caraher (22:08)
Exactly. This guy,

this person I was talking to, he has a chief of staff who is new. He's relatively new. the chief of staff, know, when you're depending on your level, if you can have a chief of staff who is an integrator in the EEO world, they call it integrators, know, who's an integrator who can actually, if you're not the integrator type, like to be the repeater, you need one period. So who is that person?

In EOS, they call it integrators. In the chief of staff role, it also can be that way. I don't like the chief of staff idea being the gatekeeper. like the of staff role being the implementer kind of thing, right? And recognizing what you're not good at is the first piece of being a good leader.

So you don't spend your time on things that you shouldn't be spending your time. I should not be spending time literally in Excel, figuring out the P &L. Why am I spending any of it? mean, it's not my strength. I get in there and I start diddling around with all the Excel. I'm like, why am I spending my time on this for? I couldn't. And I shouldn't be. So we have to understand what we're good and we're not good at it. And in general, people...

Sean Patton (23:11)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (23:18)
It's very unusual to find a visionary integrator. Very unusual.

Sean Patton (23:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, totally. well, as part of that with, teams and we mentioned, you know, being distributed and also diverse and also, generationally diverse and you know, you've got to, you get a book about millennials and management. let's dive into that. Like where, ⁓ with where, where the general different generations are at current.

Lee Caraher (23:31)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (23:42)
I think it's easier to start with kind of like what you see wrong or the issues. And then we can talk about maybe solutions and how to do it right. like, where, where are you seeing with your clients, the things break down in terms of intergenerational communication and leadership.

Lee Caraher (23:54)
Yeah.

think the first thing about intergenerational conflict is that we assume this is new. And it's not. I think the first five pages of my first book, I quote Socrates. And there's movies, Bye Bye Birdie, which you're probably too young for. But there are literally songs and movies and books about this since before Christ. So it's not a new phenomenon.

Sean Patton (24:17)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (24:20)
Someone, number one, number two, someone complained about us. Whoever generation you're in, someone complained. And by the time we get to be a place where there's younger people to complain about, it's like we sort of forgotten that we were them. So if we can just remember that, that's number one. And I think the second thing is the generation is getting compressed.

And we codified generations around common, not just years, but really common situations. So boomers were after World War II because there were so many of them, and the last year of boomers. So many of us. And what did that mean for the middle class, which really started after World War II and all the things. And then Gen Xers, smaller, very small generation in comparison, because that was the beginning of double income housing.

families where the mom wasn't at home the whole time. So they didn't have as many children. And we had technology that was bringing people from farms to cities, all the things. then millennials was the next. the millennials being raised by boomers, mostly by boomers and older millennials. they're basically, this is after two huge downturns in the economy where millions of people are getting laid off or losing their jobs. And they're like, don't count on the man. Don't count.

Don't, you know, don't try, there's no such thing as loyalty and work. And they're like, and so the millennials were like, I don't want to be my dad. I don't want be my mom. And they were, you know, everybody wins soccer. It was the worst possible thing you could do after kindergarten. And social promotion and great inflation really starts with millennials because the cost of education goes up so high. Well, we did no favors for those people. And then Jen Alpha or Jen Z, sorry, is next, is sort of magnified.

Now, there's all these different things that are driven by technology, by condition, by the economy, all the things. Bottom line, though, everybody wants the same thing. No matter who you are, no matter generation you're in, what are the commonalities? And if we can focus on what's common between us, we all want to have a role that matters. We all want to be respected. We all want to understand how we can contribute and be seen of value.

Does anybody not want those things no matter what generation you're in? No. mean, no. They may express it differently because they have different conditions. everyone, you know, so if you think if you worry about what everyone has in common, then you can build. can manage the differences among that. And, you know, a couple of ones that showed up when I was writing that first book was they just quit.

They just quit and they go to another job. Well, yeah, because you sucked at telling them how to make it work for you. Well, I just knew literally. I cannot tell you how many times I mean, I gave I was on a book tour for ever in a day, it felt like. they're there. I my Q &A sections were longer than the actual book talk because everyone's like, well, I have this employee and she just doesn't come in on time. I was like, well, what time is on time?

Well, of course it's nine o'clock. Like, what do mean, of course? My time is eight o'clock at my company. I have to be there by, well, everyone knows it's nine o'clock. Like she made this assumption, right? I said, well, have you ever told her that she needs to be in the, well, she should know. So we make these generational she should knows because that's how we grew up in business. There are no shoulds. I said, well, you're going to have to go tell her.

that she was wrong. Well, she's been, she's been, she's been lately for six months. I said, well, she's going to quit on you before she, get to fire her. I'm like, no, she's not. I'm like, yes, she is. You're going to tell her she's been late for six months. She's going to know immediately. You've been talking about her for six months and that you let her be late for six months and didn't talk to her. She's going to quit on you.

please, quit on me. So the gender, if we think about, we're not that special.

Sean Patton (27:56)
Yeah

Lee Caraher (29:01)
We're not that special. And number one, number two, everyone complained about us. Number three, everybody wants the same things to understand their value, to understand what their role is. They don't want to be wrong. They want to contribute. And if we can focus on those things first, then it doesn't really matter how old you are.

Sean Patton (29:17)
Yeah, that's a good, it's, interesting and not this is like a DDI necessarily conversation. Maybe it is, guess. ⁓ but when there was this politically nationally sort of like pushback, right. ⁓ on, some of the concepts of, of DI in some circles. I really.

It was a lot of it was perception. And to your point, I'm just, what I saw was it's like, what direction do you want to attack? Like the human to human connection? Cause you could start with, look at how different we are and like start there. or, then, and then be like, but now we let's get together and make those differences work together. Or you can start with like, how are we all the same established that and then look at.

Lee Caraher (29:46)
Yeah. Great.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (29:59)
let's celebrate our different strengths and differences how that comes to the team. So it's just like, is it inside out or outside in? yeah, I think it's both hands. I do think to your point though, that the team, if you're going to create an organization in a team, it has to kind of start with the team first. And maybe this is my military background, but like I always say that for every mission set, there's an ideal culture.

Lee Caraher (30:06)
things both want.

Yes.

Sean Patton (30:23)
Right. So you have to know what your mission is first. And you have to like establish a culture because yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, I mean, the ideal culture for a creative graphic design and marketing team office is different than nuclear engineers. Like we hope so. Right. Those are, those are. Yeah. Those are, those are very different culture. So if you, so if you start with like, what is going to be the best and then there might be, it also helps you recognize like, maybe there's some people that.

Lee Caraher (30:25)
Yeah, doesn't matter unless you know where you're going.

Yeah!

Sean Patton (30:49)
aren't a good fit and that's cool too. But if you don't ever establish it and you just, yeah, it might just like, it becomes this amorphous moving target you can never kind of nail down.

Lee Caraher (30:51)
Yeah. Where would they be a better foot? Yeah.

⁓

there's a woman who I work with and she was just complaining about this person on her team. She's just not, you know, I just want something more creative. I just need her to be more creative. And I'm like, okay, Julie, no, that is a square peg in a round boat. She is not a creative person. She is not skilled in graphic design. She has no interest in graphic design and you want her output to be like top notch.

you know, level setting, graphic design, you are asking someone who does not have the chops to do a job she is not well suited for. Tell me what she's good at. And she names it, do, do, do. I'm like, have her do that. Have her do that, right? Don't ask her to do things she's not good at. Would I ask you to run a Excel sheet looking at myself? God no, because I know what you do when you do that. you know, we have these on that. Just because we have a job, we need to get filled.

Sean Patton (31:36)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (31:48)
a person that we put in there because we thought they might work out, they may not work out for that role. Doesn't mean they're not valuable, right? So my team is, well, today it's much more diverse than it was, you know, 10 years ago, easily. We have many more people who are of, from, first generation immigrants or first generation Americans, sorry.

many six out of 25 who are first generation college graduates and therefore first generation white collar workers and their families. And their expectations are so different. They don't expect to have a mentor. They don't expect all these things that someone who grew up in a white collar workforce would just go, yeah, I better have my fricking mentor. my, you know, they just don't have the same construct. They didn't grow up around the table with it. So we've had to set some

here's what you should expect discussions and here's what we expect of you. number one. Number two is we have everybody go through probably four different assessments. One is the, everyone does Myers-Briggs because that's pretty universal where if you go and then Strength Finders and then the Languages of Appreciation book, which is, I can't remember who it is, but the same people who wrote the Five Languages of Love wrote the

five languages of appreciation in the workplace. Because we know that teams that feel appreciated outperform those that don't every single time. And that's just profit. If you feel appreciated, you outperform those who don't because you're not grinding on anything. You know that you're valuable. Nothing's grinding in you to make you efficient. So that drops down to the bottom line, 9 to 15 % across the board. But it also says, even though we might look the same,

We are at the time when I first started, we were all white and over 40, I think now everybody's, know, we have much more, you know, people are 25 or 22 or whatever. So we did that so we could say we might look the same, but we all have different strengths and weaknesses or opportunities and challenges, whatever you want to say. So if you can admire it, acknowledge that just because we look the same, have differences when someone looks different or has a different condition than you enters the chat.

then it's easier to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses too, not based on their differences, but based on the fact that we all have differences. So, and then also setting up your teams that way. And why do we have four introverts on this account, which is run on the client side by someone who's like cheerleader? It's not going to work. It's just not going to work. You got to be a good match, right? In the client world.

You could have the best expertise possible, but if you can't have the great chemistry with the client, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because you're harder to work with. And the whole point on when you're an agency or consultant or whatever, you got to be easy to work with because there are lots of us. And we're not there to make their lives harder. We're there to make their lives better. And it might be hard because we're asking to do new things, particularly as a coach. Right. But if you're an agency doing a function.

Sean Patton (34:29)
Yeah.

Lee Caraher (34:42)
You're going to be easy to work with. So you're going to match chemistry. And that's just the reality of the business. But I want to work on that. Well, you're going to be in the back seat then because she's not going to appreciate you. It's not because you're not great. It's because she doesn't, she's not going to appreciate you or he's not going to appreciate you because that's not the way she works. And we don't, they don't have to move to us. We need to move to them. So.

That was a lot there, Sean. Sorry, I sort of went all over the place.

Sean Patton (35:06)
No,

that was awesome. That was, no, that was super valuable. Um, it's funny how much of what you're saying, I'm like instantly being like, Oh yeah, that client, that client, or this, you know, the thing I'm just noticing these situations as you bring them up so much. And just want to call out, mentioned, uh, you know, appreciation goes straight to the bottom line. That like that hits. Like if you take

Lee Caraher (35:09)
You

Mm-mm. Straight to the bottom line.

We're humans,

right? And let's talk about that. Let's talk about what that means. All right. So when you feel appreciated, you don't worry about not being valuable. You don't worry about your self-worth. You don't, you're not grinding on being pissed because if we're upset or mad or that feels something was unfair, whatever the things we, what do we do? We, it's all internal. It's all bitching and moaning and grinding. And maybe we don't say it out loud, but it's all in our body. And, ⁓ that just drags us down. That drags down our efficiency.

What should take one takes five, whatever, right? So if you feel appreciated, you got none of that getting in your way, right? None of it. And that's just meaning that, so here's a better example, actually, because there's data on this. So in their workforce, if particularly this, if someone feels that they are, if they're stressed about financial insecurity,

The research says that they lose seven hours a week in the workplace because of that stress, because they're so worried. Like, I can't lose my job. How am going to pay for that? How am going to do, you know, that is just real, real. And usually therefore it's the people on the bottom of the ecosystem who are getting paid the least, right? So you losing seven hours a week.

So that's almost 20 % of your work. that's what's at 19%. You're losing 9%, 19 % of their possible efficiency baked in because they're stressed financially. So what if those people were actually paid a living wage? So if you went from 15 hours an hour to 22 dollars an hour, that's $7. It's a lot. mean, not really, but you know, you do the math. Well, you've just gained

What is that? You went from 19 % loss to full capacity. You did not raise your cost by 19%. That's not going $7 is not 19%.

And they're not worried about it. So you're not losing seven dollars So you've got to peak, maybe peak, but you've removed that problem by, if you just add people to the mix, right, to make up the loss, you've increased your costs and actually keep dropping your efficiency because you're adding less efficient people all the time.

Sean Patton (37:39)
Yeah, yeah, so key.

Lee Caraher (37:40)
Well, you take

that to appreciate so that's the monetary thing that there's been measured seven, you know, person who's under financial stress, seven up to about seven hours a week, which is 19 % of efficiency. Same thing is true. And so you move that over to appreciation for people who may not be at the bottom of the chain, maybe they feel financially good, but they have different aspirations, they want different things they you know, and they're grinding, grinding, grinding like that sucks.

Anytime you put that negative energy into your day, you're dropping your efficiency. You have to get over that hurdle every single time. if you can find a way to, and I call, well, so, and everybody wants, unfortunately we're all human and we don't experience appreciation the same way. Some people would die if you called them out in a meeting and said, woohoo, go Sean. my God, that's terrible. And they would just, that would make them shrivel up.

Sean Patton (38:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ 100%. Yeah, 100%.

Lee Caraher (38:32)
Other people are like, where are my kudos? know? Send a note or whatever it is in that book, when that assessment really helps figure it out so that you can acknowledge people and have other people know that they were acknowledged, but make it more personal. Because in the end, we're all people and that's the unfortunate thing. This job would be so much easier without all these people.

Sean Patton (38:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. man.

This has so much power today. I really appreciate you and the work you're doing and what you brought to our audience today, Lee. As people listen to this, we'll put links to your company and that sort of thing in the show notes. But if they want to get ahold of you, like are you active on any social platforms or is there an email or how do they contact you?

Lee Caraher (39:12)
You can, LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm really easy to find, frankly. There's only, I don't know if there's other person, anyway, I'm really easy to find. So you'll have the link to my company or LeeCarahur.com or Lee or LCarahur at double dash forte email. I'll answer it. If you just, if you send me an email, I just ask you that you put like Sean Patton in the email subject line. So I know to actually pay attention to it.

Sean Patton (39:16)
Yeah.

There you go. That's the secret.

thanks so much. It's been super fun.

Lee Caraher (39:40)
Thank you so much for having me, Sean.