The Four Ps | Ep. 126

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:02)

I thought this was your framework.

[Rob] (0:02 - 0:03)

No, I didn't make this up.

[JP] (0:03 - 0:04)

It's a framework.

[Rob] (0:06 - 0:15)

Speaking of these, I made up a quote by Picasso that the best artists steal. See what I did there?

[JP] (0:16 - 0:16)

Yes.

[Dillon] (0:18 - 0:27)

No, you don't, because that was a bastardization of multiple things. That's what I'm saying. But it was just wrong.

An artist did say it, but it wasn't Picasso.

[Rob] (0:27 - 0:29)

No, I said it.

[Dillon] (0:43 - 1:03)

What's up, Lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day.

I got my man Rob here. Rob, do you want to say hi? Fat and happy, baby.

What's up, Lifers? We've got J.P. with us. J.P., do you want to say hi?

[JP] (1:04 - 1:06)

Sitting fat over in the left corner, baby.

[Dillon] (1:07 - 2:32)

I don't even know. Sitting fat. Can't wait when my wife asks me how I'm doing.

Sitting fat. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Boys, it's just us. It's just us. Quit your giggling.

Let's get to work. I have a question from my beloved and unbiased news outlet, Reddit.com. You guys ready?

I want it from two perspectives. I think I'm going to get it from two sides here. One is Rob as a leader and as a leader in multiple organizations, but J.P., perhaps more importantly from somebody who has likely behaved in this manner and how did your leader convince you not to? I'd love to hear how you all encourage your CSMs to actually engage in meetings instead of it being the manager slash director just blabbing on. I will run a meeting and then ask any questions or do you understand and most of the time they don't come off mute and there are just some head nods. I will try to select the CSM individually and ask a direct question, but without preparation, the conversation is typically fairly limited.

This comes from a difficult sitch on Reddit.

[JP] (2:33 - 2:43)

Can you frame this really quickly? They're saying, how do they get CSMs to engage in internal meetings?

[Dillon] (2:43 - 2:57)

I think it's like a team meeting. I don't know if I have context beyond that, but let's just create some. Put some words in this dude's mouth or woman.

Apologies. Cool. Who wants to start?

[Rob] (2:58 - 2:59)

I got a framework.

[Dillon] (3:03 - 3:10)

I need a sound. I need a sound for frameworks. Let me see.

[JP] (3:14 - 3:16)

Let me see.

[Rob] (3:20 - 3:27)

That's what Peewee Herman said, right? Magic word? He said the magic word.

What was the Peewee Herman thing? I can't remember.

[JP] (3:32 - 3:32)

Terrible.

[Dillon] (3:33 - 3:47)

Tell us, Framework Rob, what's up? You guys ready for this? The four Ps.

I thought it was going to be talk. T-A-L-K. Trust and likeability.

I don't know. Go ahead.

[Rob] (3:47 - 4:16)

I'll get to the four Ps. I am notorious for being a total grump in certain meetings when I'm not engaged. I hate to say it.

Call it main character syndrome or whatever you want, but if I'm not leading the meeting, if I'm just listening to people, I zone out a lot. I notice what other people do too. Ego.

It's not main character syndrome. That's your ego talking, buddy. When you're responsible for the meeting, you are required to pay attention.

[Dillon] (4:17 - 4:18)

Yeah, fair.

[Rob] (4:18 - 6:08)

I just stumbled across this framework that helps do things like cancel unnecessary meetings, normalize things like walking meetings and meetings in an environment where people feel more comfortable, stuff like that. The four Ps idea is that for every meeting you have, and particularly for every recurring meeting you have, because I personally have had my calendar totally booked up with just all recurring meetings where we show up and we don't have an agenda, but the four Ps are let me see if I can remember it. Purpose of the meeting.

Why are we here? Process of the meeting. What is the agenda?

How do we get there, in other words? People in the meeting, and that's where you try really hard to eliminate anybody who doesn't have to be there. Same goes for channels in whatever preferred chat environment you use.

No specified name, but be very judicious about who you have in each channel, and then product. What is the product you're trying to get out of the meeting? Purpose, process, people, product.

If you can figure that out, if you can just take, it only takes 30 seconds when you really get in the habit of it, and it can pay off in hours of time. If you can take that time to just stop and ask yourself, what is everyone actually doing here? The people part is the most important.

What's the personal benefit everybody has of being in that meeting? Then you're way more likely to have an engaged audience. The last thing I'll add to is when I create that agenda, that process part, I try to make every agenda item, I frame it as a question, because if it's not a question to be answered, then it probably could just be shared as an email.

It doesn't require discussion. It's not a discussion. That's been my take.

I don't know. I'm a bit over the top with it sometimes.

[Dillon] (6:10 - 6:20)

I mostly agree with this. I'm asking this question just to be a contrarian, but what happens if your P's are different than your team's P's?

[Rob] (6:21 - 6:47)

That's a great question. That's why the people part is most important, because actually, I modified that a little bit. The way that it's written in this book, the Leader Lab that I really like and recommend is they say personal benefit.

This was your framework. No, I didn't make this up. It's a framework.

Speaking of these, I made up a quote by Picasso that the best artists steal. See what I did there?

[JP] (6:48 - 6:49)

Yes.

[Dillon] (6:50 - 7:03)

No, I don't, because that was a bastardization of multiple things. That's what I'm saying. But it was just wrong.

An artist did say it, but it wasn't Picasso. No, I said it.

[Rob] (7:08 - 7:31)

It's exhausting. My point is to say, have candid conversations about why people are there, and normalize in your cultures people leaving meetings, saying, look, I'm not going to show up to this. There's not enough detail here.

This could have been an email. Normalize that within your cultures. It's okay, because the leaders out there, they're the worst at this, but they have the most power.

[Dillon] (7:33 - 7:37)

What does a meeting you're excited to go to look like?

[JP] (7:39 - 10:18)

The meeting's got to have that P, baby. It's got to have that P if JP is showing up. You hear it in my name.

There's a P in there. There's a J in there, too, but there's definitely a P. Got to be a P in that meeting.

And for me, what are you going to do about my P? Because I'm the people. You're setting it up.

I'm part of the people. So, I have been in many meetings. Clearly.

I will... I am typically a camera-off person in meetings which are usually very large because I just feel like, there's a super large meeting. Why do I need to have my camera on?

And so, since we're talking about internal meetings, I'll say that, in general, I am paying attention. Now, there are levels to that. I think I'm more tuned in for, say, if there's a meeting and it's centered on things that are really relevant to my role, so they're relevant to customer success, as opposed to, let's say we have a meeting with the entire revenue organization, per se.

Then there's going to be more items that are not applicable to certain people. But that's understandable, and no one's expecting this. But I am an advocate of being active in the chat.

If there's a chat, I'll try to chime in. Because part of that is also me staying engaged. It's not just about, oh, I better let them know I'm listening because my camera's off.

It's more, oh, I hear this. Oh, that was a good point that someone made. So, I try to be present in that way, just out of respect.

Actually, there's a cool thing that we can do in our meetings sometimes, which is, halfway through, there's a question, a silly question. It's like, dark chocolate or milk chocolate, or something like that. It'll be like, everyone goes in and it's just...

So, I think breaking up your meeting... I think, ultimately, it's on the person hosting the meeting and setting up the meeting to make sure that all this stuff is there. Because, as you alluded to, if I have to come to this meeting, there's not like a...

Most meetings, unless I have a customer meeting or something, I don't have exactly a choice. I mean, there is a choice, but if I choose not to show up, that is obviously not going to be a good choice. So, I believe in being camera on for small meetings, for customer meetings, of course, over external.

But internally, I think that I generally pay attention, but I am a big proponent of this 4P framework, I have to say.

[Dillon] (10:18 - 10:45)

So, what's interesting is the number one response, which got six times as many upvotes as anything else, goes a little something like this, and maybe you'll see some parallels. Number one, rig the system. So, identify influencers on your team, get their buy-in, and motivate them to speak up, and furthermore, inspire others, which is a little bit of subterfuge.

[JP] (10:46 - 10:47)

I don't love that one.

[Dillon] (10:49 - 10:54)

But second is build an agenda with your team so they are a part of the process.

[JP] (10:55 - 10:56)

Yes, that P, baby.

[Dillon] (10:56 - 11:08)

Usually leads to more buy-in. Number three, acknowledge slash predict their pain points or thoughts and ask more direct questions outside of how does this feel or what do you think. So, that's the people piece.

Getting them involved.

[JP] (11:09 - 11:12)

You're right. It's also the process part, though.

[Dillon] (11:12 - 11:14)

Sure, I think this all fits in process.

[JP] (11:14 - 11:15)

Yeah, you're right.

[Dillon] (11:16 - 12:49)

All this is easier if you develop trust and rapport with your team, and so that goes back to the leadership piece you both were talking about. It's incumbent on the leader, and this is their job to make them comfortable. These are all just tools, but at the end of the day, build a safe environment.

No one wants to look stupid in front of their boss, and people are usually hesitant to say anything for that reason. So, that goes to the normalization you guys were talking about around number one, I think building a safe environment. Rob, I laughed when you said normalizing the ability for people to say, I don't want to be in this meeting, or I'm not going to that meeting.

Bro, I ended up in a TikTok like a spiral last night of watching people record themselves while they had toxic conversations with their bosses or their HR people, which by the way, guys, that is almost certainly illegal in some of the states of the listeners that listen. So, we are not recommending you do that, but I think that's so few and far between to find companies that are open to the level of debate that you encourage, Rob, or pushback that you encourage, and certainly it's a push and a pull. There's like a you're building this relationship where there's open communication, and you can be wrong sometimes, but you can also tell your boss that you're wrong, and it doesn't put a demerit on your report card, so to speak.

And I don't think most folks are living in that world, or at least I know from my experience, that wasn't the case.

[Rob] (12:50 - 12:53)

Yeah, it's unfortunate. And there is a...

[JP] (12:53 - 12:55)

Hey, get off TikTok, y'all. Get off TikTok.

[Rob] (12:55 - 13:02)

I'll bury the lead for another framework I have for managing up situations like that.

[Dillon] (13:03 - 13:09)

So, by bury the lead, you're just going to say you have one, and then we're going to say... Another episode. We're coming up on time, guys.

We are.

[Rob] (13:09 - 13:14)

That's our time, folks. We got Kiwi Herman, Picasso. Oh.

[Dillon] (13:15 - 13:20)

I'm so glad that JP explained what the P was that he was referring to, because it was going on for a while.

[JP] (13:21 - 13:24)

Anyways, boys... I can take down P like the best of them, baby.

[Dillon] (13:27 - 13:28)

We'll see you next time.

[JP] (13:28 - 13:29)

Bye.

[Speaker 4] (13:34 - 14:05)

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