Your team IS NOT a 'Family'

This episode of The Contest Island Podcast is brought to you by Revlon Professional Australia. Welcome back to The Contest Island Podcast. Oi oi, will we be called a big suddenly bad oi oi? Oh no, we can't eat it. I don't like that, not a whole. Not very conscious. No, it's not our brand, no. But oi oi, Tis. And we've also extracted one of our favourite co-hosts from the salon today. Shout out to the clients that we rescheduled to get to here. Very good. There's a good story behind it, but we do have TAY here in the studio very last minute. And by the way, starting to see you can't be ready and looking hot. TAY, well she always looks hot at work. That's when I stroll into the salon like, "Oh, God, I forget how elevated everyone is." So this is me elevated. And they're all like in like. Summer gowns. [laughter] Summer gowns. But TAY, you are here unexpectedly. Great to have you in the studio. Thank you. You took it like a champ when I did call you up because this morning's test had a little bit of a. Do you want to share your story? Yeah, I mean, I don't. I hate starting things like this because like, I don't know, there's no great ending at the end. There's nothing to really say. It feels like, I actually feel like I'm like gaslighting myself, which is crazy at the moment. But I rolled my ankle nine days ago. On a walk, which is not uncommon, like I'm a trippy gal. I fall over a lot. I rolled my ankle frequently. And I did find out thanks to Dr. Rory, which I'll give him a little shout out. Megan's partner. Fionsay, actually. Megan's fiance. He told me I've got very flexible ankles. What did he say? So I thought, and yes, flex is an actually out-of-lux. [laughter] Anyway, it turns out that I was flexible as what I thought because something's happened. And yeah, it's just gotten. I'm giving. It's cancels now. It's not an ankle. It's super swollen and like, perfectly blue. And I can't walk very well. So it's not broken. We had the extra yesterday. Then I had to get call back in this morning before the event, which shout out to my doctor. He was a real king in all this. But yeah, I had to go and get. They were worried because of the swelling and they can't pinpoint it. They were like, "You need to go and get a. What does it say to you?" "Oh, I just sound." And a say to you stand done. And then I have to get another ultrasound tomorrow. Pretty much that's it for all that. It wasn't a blood clot, which I thought was no big deal. I think I did that too. I was like, "Okay." I was like, "I was unbeazy today. I'll come tomorrow." And I was like, "This can be life through it, Nathan." I was like, "Shit, really?" So we had to. It was just tranquil. And we had about two hours. So, just like, I'll go there and. Yeah. if they're gonna find something. And I was like, "Oh, God." And then I was thinking about it. And I was like, "Blood clot would make sense because her foot. Don't say that. I sort of went a little bit down the rabbit hole. But I like, I still had my business head on. I was like, "We've got the studio today." So, I don't fancy 'em because we had such an important guess. And then we had five episodes to do. Or four episodes to do. And I didn't fancy doing this by myself. So I called down and said, "You're gonna have to cancel your afternoon in the cell." And then you had to come into the studio. And I got the all clear, she was a real coin about it. I hope I'm not writing her out. I'm not giving her name. So it's fine. All the place had a win too. But she did say. Your results have been fast-tracked this afternoon. There's no blood clot. That's like stunning. I'm on. No blood clot. Chapsions in the studio. Crescendo socks on, Nathan. No, I don't know. I put on a crock. Sure, they were like. I could be being asked. And you're like, "Yeah, once." But it's too cold. I can't do it. So, anyway, it's probably self-inflicted. But yeah, I'm not putting my foot up 'cause I'm not gonna scar everyone. But just trust me when I say. Also, I see like the offeter, the Lisa Tracky thing about you. 100%. I said this last. Mom actually said yesterday when she was looking at my legs. She said, "Which ones are swallow ones?" It was like. Yeah, that's it. The clot. I was like, "I don't know how, but I've somehow lost three kilos." I was like, "I'm like pushing it to lose 200 grams." I'm like, "Yes." And she's like. And she eats so much. She never sees. She's a good at shapeworm. For sure. I'm really ready to see it. That was really inspiring. So then I fully feel like I'm gaslighting myself 'cause there's no breaks. They can't find a problem. But it looks horrendous. I've got a sharpie and coloured in it. And she's in the bumping head. Just wait. I mean, it does not look good. It looks so bad. I mean, you know, he didn't look good through it. Anyway, maybe we might have put a. I think it's getting enough fat for it. Tolerate, it's not a bullshit. From everyone around me. You're all gonna feel bad if I've got some awful, like, red and conditioned. They're like, "Oh, that actually isn't clot." I'm like, "Oh, oh." Anyway, we have. We have been gathered here today not just for a full chat, but we do have some higher on the agenda. And we want to talk to someone about having boundaries with their teams. Not talking to their team, and not contacting the team outside of ours. This is like an epidemic. And so often our clients will come in and they'll talk to us in various programs that we do, whether it's one-to-one or group programs. And they'll come in and say, "I contacted my team member on Sunday afternoon and asked her about a client who didn't have any notes." Blah, blah, blah. And this is something that we immediately see as a red flag. But once one of the time there is a version of us who would absolutely find that okay. And we want to put a stop to it, because this is such a. The hair and beauty industry is an industry where we've almost normalized being able to be so accessible and being so contactable outside of ours. And we are now seeing people extending that to their teams. And your team needs downtime, so we can talk about it. It's stunning. So Tis, why don't you take us on the journey? I want you to talk about who we once were, where we breached this. That's good, I've actually got to tell you. I want you to talk about your perception as a team member, and how. We can do our lived experience. I reckon we've done it today, where we have spoken about this. When I overstep boundaries, we'd tell you about a colourball. That really triggered me. But it was normal once upon a time, but it was just our team. 100%. I think there's a couple of layers to this. I think. Salon owners can get lost in two things. They think that this stuff is essential, and they have to like, nip it in the bar immediately. They go into that reactivity, and they don't take a beat to actually consider it. Hello, me, I did that. And when we live in that state, you don't really process or slow down or have that moment of like taking a beat and actually consider what's going on. Or there's also a thing of like, "We all love each other." We're just like, "Bibesides, we're family." Yeah. And either way, that's beautiful. However, it is so important to respect your team's boundaries, and also talk to them about work things during work times. And I feel this is something that we see play out a lot. For those of you who aren't aware of the story of Tay and I, I'll share on that. I can, well, I know that we blurred it many times over, but this is still, so we sit here at the three of us being, you know, sisters, best mates, and also working in all three of our businesses together. We have such solid boundaries and structure around how we communicate, because if we start fucking with them, everything gets blurred, there is no boundary, and then it all just meshes into one big mess, which is what it had done in the past. So for the exact like blurring of boundaries that happened from my perspective of this, Tay had a day off, or you want to annual leave, there was a reason my Tay wasn't in the salon. And I went into the salon and I think you'd forgotten to rinse a colour ball or something like that. And I took a photo of the colour ball and then sent a. A penance. (laughter) You want the receipts? I took a photo of it and then put it in, was it directly to you? Was it in the group chat? It was in the group chat. I can't remember which one it was, but one of them. And then went through a hole like, this is not okay, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like this, I should not be pretty much just getting into my, you know, this is not acceptable and don't ever do this again, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And Tay, of course, apologized for pretty much breathing in the salon the wrong way. And it was, it just felt yuck. And as soon as you sent that back, I realised, oh, that would feel so awful for her at home now. Like she's not here. I've now given her something to feel really anxious about. She will be stewing on this all day. Well, I'm just going to get on with my day and move on because I'm the reactive queen that's like, got it out and then I'm going back to my day. Whereas for you, I know that that, like, you would have never succumbed to work the next day. And I think that was the beginning of realising that really identifying the fact that I needed to put a beat in place and really put my emotions and the reactivity aside, park it and have that conversation with Tay the next day so that she can also see my intention that because you can't tell anything through a text, you can't tell Tony, you can't tell like what the intention is, there's nothing like that. Whereas if you have that conversation, when someone is at work, that's the appropriate time. It's not appropriate to blow that boundary outside of that. And I feel this is where a lot of salon owners can get lost because they will prioritise these things like the colour bowl not being done and being like, I need to bring that up now because otherwise I'm going to forget or I need to speak about that now so that she knows not to do it again or because like it's in the moment and like bubble blah or whatever the reasons are, you know what you're doing it. But what we've really learnt to master is not stepping into that. that reactivity, putting the phone down, writing a note, and then talking about it in the appropriate way. And I thought this is something that's leveled up from all three of us. - And even in group chats, I see so many tell on it, saying, I was talking to my team, and when we enforce the boundaries of don't contact your team outside of ours, they'll say, "Oh, we're talking in the group chat." It's okay, the team really wanted to, like they all wanted to talk, and the group chat was going off, and I'm like, "This is not a girlfriend's chat." And the group chat going off on a Saturday night, when your team should be having downtime. That's a red flag. That is, it's creating, you know, whether it be an inappropriate interaction outside of the cell on every weekend, when the team are having their downtime, and they've got these two pressure stays off, and then they're in the group chat talking about something, like our group chat is relatively quiet, 'cause we talk about things that we need to talk about in our meetings. - Yeah. - And unless there's something that's, you know, a really significant event that someone's going to, where we want to share that, it's not like, it's just, it's two very different relationships. I want to hear your perspective, too. - I think you're just touching on what you're saying, with like, it's also then like an added pressure, like some team member, like I'm, everyone who knows me, I'm terrible with my phone. Phone message is absolutely terrible. If you need me, call me, I'll answer that. That's pretty much it. Mickey always messages to me and says, "You don't have to reply." - I always say, "You just say no." - "Here's so it's going on." No pressure. (laughing) - Well, you said, "You have lovely texts over the Easter weekend." (laughing) - And it was a big fool. - She's showing. - No, I was like, "Bring." - "Send them just a little say, I'll love you." - "I'm so happy." - "We're loving you." - "We're saying you." - So I'll put that in my agenda to bring up at the appropriate time. (laughing) - No, that is easy, darling. - No, but I know that about you. - Yeah. - But like also for team members who are new, or people who aren't, and people are like on their far ends of doing it, it adds that extra pressure and anxiety around it, because you want to be part of the team, but then if you're not joining in there, when you get into the salon, is it like, then one group and one group that are getting really involved? But yeah, definitely, can stir up a lot of anxiety around it. And I think depending on your dynamic with your salon owner as well, if you are getting those messages, you're stressed of bringing up concerns or challenges or things you want to work through. If you're getting those kind of messages, and again, you're not knowing how it's being set on the other end because of how it's being written out, it can be quite overwhelming. And then if you're struggling with just, say, retail sales, but then you're getting these messages of like you're not doing these things, you're not going to feel comfortable in an environment where you're going to feel supported to be able to bring up the things that you're struggling with. And I think it's just a mutual respect of time. Like we're really, really clear, even sometimes how good a message, either of you, and I'll go to message it in Teletagram. - Yeah, it's a good one. - That's what I'm doing. But then I'm like, oh no, it's something personal I need to text them. And it just brings that awareness of like, okay, what I'm sending right now, what is the purpose of it? Is it something that can't wait or is it something that's personal where, you know, I want to tell you that I love you or I care about you, but it gives it that big. (laughing) - It's okay. - But it tells it just gives it that big as well. And it like, have that moment to be like, okay, is this really, does it see their time right now? And you know, whenever I say, I love you, it always needs a time, sir. - Absolutely good. - To some of them. (laughing) - But you know what, I think with this as well, it just takes out the confusion. Because when there is like our group chat, I'm thinking about our group chat. What we use, actually, I'm a, our group chat with a three of us, it's all about work stuff. And as Tessa said, if it's personal, it's personal, we go into text. Telegram is where we do our group chat through work stuff. Our team group chat is also through telegram. What goes in that, meeting notes. Every time we have a meeting, we put in the notes for anyone that isn't there on the day or for people who need to have a refresh up. So we pop in our meeting notes. Literally, I will scribe out as Tessa running the meeting. As soon as that meeting is finished, I copy those notes, post them in there so that it's there for anyone that wants to go back on or isn't aware or blah, blah, blah, whatever the reason is. We've currently got a Tated Commitment. - Not a running. (laughing) - Three commitments that the girls are working on. They all pop them in on Tuesday. Amazing. - That was all done during work time. Again, that was all done on the Tuesday whilst they were in salon. And then I think someone put it in on Wednesday morning again during salon hours. Outside of that, there might be like an invitation if one of our teams getting married at the moment. I know that her engagement and wedding invite went in there as well. She also gave them personal ones as well, but that was just in there as well. Photos, things like that that they wanna share. Outside of that, the chat's pretty quiet. Unless there's something where someone is on holiday and they wanna share where they are on a beach or something like that. - Again, we didn't even start. - I'm pressure. - Because I always am like, well, though, I thought about it and then I was like, no, I don't want to make the team feel pressured to have to say happy Easter. And I'm like, no, we said happy Easter. We verbally said it on Thursday. - Yeah. - And we also gave the little Easter gifts as well as the Easter Bunny came on Tuesday morning. - Yeah. - So I'm more conscious of that now, whereas we used to be like, happy Easter. And then I'd be like, okay, who's written back? - Yeah. - And so I was written back, good, they've seen it. - Yeah. - That person's seen it and has a written back. - That's me. (laughing) - Taya, again. (laughing) - Taya, can we talk about your boundaries that you set for the team in terms of not having that relationship outside of the salon? - Yeah, absolutely. I think I've always, not held back, but always had that boundary with team members of not personal things got, having that still personal relationships but not outside of work, I think it can get really easy to blur lines. It can get confusing, it can get, I don't know, just, I feel like I could get really messy. I've never been in that situation, but I was always scared of that. So I always was really clear, like we'll always be friendly. Like if there's a birthday and everyone's going to, I'll definitely go, but for me, I'm always in that, not work mindset, but like responsible, like don't get too, you know, I have my memories where I get silly, but try not to get too silly and like really keep that clear. - Because it's hard as well if you do blur that. It's really hard to hold people accountable or call the line or have those challenging conversations, which I've seen you really step up into and really, you know, having that awareness on the boundary of it, which has been amazing. - But if I'm partying with them every weekend, like is anyone going to take me seriously? Absolutely not. And as they shouldn't. So for me, it's always been a really clear boundary of like this is there and this is there. And I think like even just touching on Salon owners, you know, they don't want the shoulder taps that are what the message is, like this, your team is the same. Like you want to respect, the mutual respect between the two of you of, you know, this is when we talk and this is how we talk and get really clear about what that looks like for everyone and create a space where everyone can have that talk, like space true talk. - I feel like there's that unhealthy attachment that so many Salon owners have to their team and I really fucking hate hearing the thing of like, we're family. - Yeah. - We're family. I'm like mate, I work with my family and you should see how we scrap when no one's around. And I don't want that. I want to be really clear that like tests and I are literally family. And when we are in work mode, we have a professional hat on at all times. - We also have the professional chat of just you're on my work chat, where it is literally, that is literally called Nick and Tess, work chats. So we have our own work chat and telegram and we don't message each other in the outside of hours. We'll schedule a message if we need it to go out to the other one. We don't look at it after five o'clock and we know that if we were calling each other, if something monumental happened in our business, but the other one didn't know, we will not talk about that unless it's like life-threatening after the hours of five and before the hours of eight. It's just a boundary that we have. And we've had to work really hard at that. - Really hard. - And sometimes we get it wrong, but we're getting so much better at it. But even for that mentality that someone and it's having like, where me and my team are family, like we're just so supportive, we're always there for each other, blah, blah. Yep, cool, but when something goes wrong, let me know how that family situation is going. You fuck up with your team. You're very quickly not family. Let me tell you. And also the fact that when I think about family dynamics, I think of so many people can take their family for granted. So many people can be their worst version of themselves at their family. I don't want you in your family itself. I want you as your professional version. - Yeah. - And we have to get really clear on that. Because so many people I think they think, as a cell phone, as they think of their team, as like their mates, and their for them, that want to see what they're doing on a Saturday night. And they create this almost like, what's the word? It's almost like this dependency that my team are going to give a shit about me and my team want to know all the stuff about my life. They probably don't. They probably being polite. They're probably doing what they think that you want. But at the end of the day, these people have a life outside of work. And for those two days a week, where they're not in the salon, they should not be thinking, like the one thing that we have in the hair industry, and this is why we're so passionate about team not having their own Instagram accounts. This is one industry where you should be able to lock the door and not think about a single thing with your work until you turn that cake and three days later or two days later. It is an industry that you should have that, we have that privilege in this industry. Why are we making people more, why are you making yourself more accessible to your team? Why are you making your team more accessible to you? Why are you making your team accessible to clients? Why are you making yourself accessible to clients? Outside of those hours. Because you are there to determine the boundary and to lay the boundary in the standard, and it's so important to respect other people's time. It's not paid work time. We shouldn't be having any conversations that are outside of paid work time. - Okay, sorry. that in mind, those people who are currently like, "Oh, fuck, I'm hearing this and realizing that I'm having the chats all blurred and etc." What can we do? Let's do a tip or an action step. What do you think of that? Having that as a one thing you would do differently if you're either hearing this and recognizing, "Oh, I think this is me," or if you are wanting to switch things up, what would be your tip to? So, first, my tip is that you need to create a notes app in your phone that's called Things I Need to Talk to my team about. And every time you go to message in that group chat, I want you to think, "Could this go in the notes app?" I need to talk to a team member at a more appropriate time to facilitating a meeting. And if you think, "Oh, but there's never a time we're all together," you need to start having team meetings every four night if you don't know how to do that, go and touch that course, the consciousness rate course. But you need to start facilitating regular team meetings. There is a breakdown in communication currently and the group chat is not a place for you to have a group and list work on airing out dirty laundry, making strategy with your team. Your time to communicate with your team is in your team meetings. So, open a notes app and start jotting down every time you go to message in that group chat. No, this is going in the notes app and I'm going to talk to my team at the appropriate time. What's yours? Ty, what's yours? Mine is find your boundaries and relay them to the team and get really strict and clear on what the boundaries are and what everyone is expected to do. So whether that's no message you're using out of this hour and that hour, especially if you're someone who's not in the salon all the time, so you can test a barely in the salon, but the girls know not to contact them. They know that if they need to obviously some things, you know, kind of come out of their in terms of personal things, as in if they want to tell them they love them. But other than that, they come to me and then if I need to relay anything straight away like a weirdo, but if not, then it waits until I see them in their in our leadership meeting. So get really clear around what your boundaries are, what you're going to like set and set the standard for your team. Because if you're doing it, then everyone else doing it and it can just like snowball. So communicate it really clearly as well. Love that. So open the notes up and set the things I'm going to talk to the team about. Set the boundary and communicate it clearly so everyone is understanding it. My tip is going to be if you are someone that is like, I need to I need to do this in this moment. If you're the reactive queen that is like, no, this needs addressing now, type it out, do all the things, schedule it, schedule it for when they're going to be at work, schedule it for that timeframe. So this is something for me, I'm not someone that can remember things, you know, in the moment or it's gone forever. Scheduling is something now that we can do. Text messages, I think I'm pretty sure you can do it on social media, like telegram and you can schedule messages is really easy to do. You can literally set the minute that you want it to be sent in. I'm always scheduling messages, especially to tell you, because when I'm prepping things for her, if I'm not going to be in, I need to get that to her sometimes before I'm awake or before I'm like, in my first hour or two of work, I'm not going to be considering going better go and sent out that message now. So I schedule it so she's going to receive her when she's going to be either at work or very close to being at work. And she knows that when she sees that scheduled message from me, that's this is what it's ready for you for the day. So if you can't hold off, that's fine. Write it out, do all the things, schedule it for an appropriate time. Then you're still sticking within your boundaries. Stunning. This is going to help a lot of people. And yeah, we just have to be conscious that this wouldn't happen in like a corporate world. Teachers aren't messaging in a group chat after hours. Stenters. Like it's not common thing. It's not a common thing. And we, in some ways, in our industry, that people pleasing mentality of being like, I need the validation that my team's all good and we all love each other so much and we're family because I text them over the weekend. But that's a thing of the past now. One more bonus tip. Right. Turn your notifications off. Yeah. And that's one of the biggest things I think we've done is like switching out like our apps shut off all of our work apps at 5pm every night, open lockout, can't override it or you can, but it's like complicated. But like, I don't even know. Yeah, literally okay, Ruby skew. 5pm that shuts off. So we do not see anything outside that until the next morning. And realistically, if it's like if people are like, oh, but you know, this element might burn down, blah, blah. Well, they need to call the fire brigade first and then they can call you. But that will be a phone call. No one's going to write in a group chat. Hey. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you guys so much for listening to that. - Yeah. - And I'm the upside of the conscious talent podcast. - Love you guys, stay conscious. - Yeah.