The reason you lie awake worrying about your team is not that you need a more elaborate task-tracking system. Lia introduces the Snippets Template, a lightweight weekly update tool that gives leaders a bird’s-eye view of priorities, wins, and blockers without micromanaging. This episode is especially useful for remote team leaders, small business owners, and anyone who feels perpetually out of the loop on what their team is actually doing.
This episode is part of the Team Operations, Systems & SOPs series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“If people are feeling like we are asking them to do something just for the hell of it, we’ve got a real problem.”
“Someone doesn’t get the why. They don’t get what’s in it for them. Okay, you haven’t communicated the goal of this and we haven’t brought them along.”
“…i always like to frame it in, Hey, I was thinking about how we could make work easier on the team.”
“…when we show people what’s in it for them, you create that personal accountability. People are excited to follow the system.”
Episode highlights
The phrase that should be a red flag for every leader
Lia was running a workshop on time optimization when she kept hearing teams say “process for process’s sake.” Her first reaction was confusion. Her second was clarity. When people use that phrase, they are not rejecting the process. They are telling you they have no idea why it exists.
If your team is dragging their feet on something you know is genuinely useful, that is not a people problem. It is a communication problem.
Why broad announcements backfire
The most common mistake is the “Hey everyone, new process, please update by Friday” email. No context, no reason, no connection to anyone’s actual work. In most teams and industries today, people do not comply just because you asked them to, even if you are the boss. That is just the reality.
When there is no explanation, people fill in the gap themselves, and they almost always land on: this is just overhead, this makes my job harder, someone wants to feel important with a clipboard. That is never what you intend, but it is where they go.
Lead with “I thought about you”
Lia’s reframe is simple and it works. Before you mention the new tool, system, or process, open with the fact that you were thinking about the team and how to make work easier or set everyone up for success.
“That is literally always how I frame it: I care about you, and that is why I am going to tell you the next thing.”
Once you have established that the change comes from a place of investment in them, people are far more willing to hear the actual information.
Explain the problem you are solving, not just the solution
After the care-first opener, name the specific problem this process solves, and make sure it is a problem they recognize too. If you are introducing time tracking, explain that you want to make sure the team is not undercharging clients and that everyone is getting paid what they should be. That is a reason people can get behind.
You are not just announcing a new system. You are walking them through the thinking: here is what I noticed, here is what I want to protect for you, and here is what we are going to try.
Frame it as a pilot, then actually ask for feedback
Lia always introduces new processes as a pilot. A few months, collect feedback as you go, and adjust if it is too cumbersome. That framing removes the permanence that makes people dig in and resist. It signals that their input matters and that you are not locked in.
The key move at the end of the conversation: ask directly. Does this make sense? What concerns do you have? How can we make this easier? When you leave it open, people do not leave feeling like something was done to them.
What happens when you use this framework
Lia used this exact approach to move a design team from tracking tasks on Post-its to proactively entering work into a complex engineering task management system. Not because she mandated it. Because she showed them what was in it for them, and they created their own accountability around it.
When people see the personal benefit, the system stops being an obligation and starts being a tool they actually want to use. That is the shift worth chasing.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 230: Why your team problems are actually systems problems (and what to fix first). When your team feels chaotic, unclear, or constantly dependent on you, the culprit is almost never the people. It is the absence of simple, repeatable systems that tell everyone how to operate. Lia walks through the real cost of missing systems, two client stories with immediate results, and how to roll out new processes so your team gets bought in from day one. This episode is essential for any owner who says they hate process but secretly hates the chaos more.
- Ep 215: Why your team seems entitled (and what is really causing it). When your team feels entitled, the root cause is almost never attitude. It is a clarity gap, and the fix starts with you asking what role you played in creating the dynamic. Lia walks through two questions every owner and leader should ask before writing off a team member, and explains how operational clarity through an Ops Playbook prevents these friction points from forming in the first place. This episode is most useful for founders, small business owners, and managers who feel like they are constantly negotiating with their teams.
- Ep 198: Why your team asked for training but still won’t show up (and how to fix it). When team members ask for development but skip the training you built, it usually comes down to three fixable problems: they feel too stretched to step away, leaders are not modeling that the training matters, and the content itself has not earned their trust yet. Lia walks through each obstacle and gives you concrete language and moves to address all three before your next training. This episode is especially useful for business owners, HR leaders, and team leads who have already invested in development and watched the room stay empty.
- Ep 177: How to stop waking up at 3am worried about your team (and what to do instead). The reason you lie awake worrying about your team is not that you need a more elaborate task-tracking system. Lia introduces the Snippets Template, a lightweight weekly update tool that gives leaders a bird’s-eye view of priorities, wins, and blockers without micromanaging. This episode is especially useful for remote team leaders, small business owners, and anyone who feels perpetually out of the loop on what their team is actually doing.
Want to go deeper?
The Ops Playbook. Systems and SOPs for teams that need to scale without breaking.
Full transcript (click to expand)
If people are feeling like we are asking them to do something just for the hell of it, we’ve got a real problem. And we have a real opportunity because what we can do in the situation is it’s just like a light bulb, like, oh, I see. Someone doesn’t get the why. They don’t get what’s in it for them. Okay, you haven’t communicated the goal of this and we haven’t brought them along. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast.
I’m Leah Garvin, your host and team operations consultant. Through this show and my signature Ops Playbook, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech to save you time, money, and stress. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realized that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be, or a new manager looking to learn the ropes, or a seasoned manager ready to up their game, everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple.
From conflicts, to feedback, to delegating, and more, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Welcome back to the show. There is a phrase that I have been hearing over the last few weeks. It actually came up in a workshop I was leading for a corporate client around kind of optimizing time. And this phrase is, process for process sake.
Teams saying, I don’t want there to be process for process sake, or, you know, it feels like this is just thought of a new process for process sake. And I was like, what the actual beep do people mean by this? And as someone that has spent their entire career in simplifying processes and helping people optimize their time, make it easier to get things done, I wanted to talk about this today because this is a huge, huge sort of perspective that we’ve got to shift on our teams.
Because if people are feeling like we are asking them to do something just for the hell of it, we’ve got a real problem. We have a real opportunity. Because what we can do in the situation is it’s just like a light bulb, like, oh, I see. Someone doesn’t get the why. They don’t get what’s in it for them. Okay. You haven’t communicated the goal of this and we haven’t brought them along. So if you are hearing any kind of resistance to process or systems or anything that you feel like is needed to kind of be happening on your team, but people are kind of dragging their feet, maybe it’s you’re asking them to, you know, report on status for a project every week or kind of summarize key accomplishments or something like that.
If you’re getting pushback for anything and it’s being implied that it’s just process for process sake or that it’s kind of just some overhead that you’re asking them to do that really isn’t needed, this is our opportunity to reframe it. Now I think, well, why did we get there here in the first place is we haven’t explained why. So we’re asking someone to do something. In the corporate world, a lot of times I’ve seen, you know, we need to have some kind of status report weekly and people start feeling fresher at that.
Or maybe in a big company, you’re having to track planning and goal setting a certain way. In a small business, maybe you want people to track their time right in a certain tool or figure out meeting notes or agendas in a certain kind of standardized format. And when we just ask people to do that, we say, Hey everyone, emailing you new process for this, please update all your, you know, things in the system by Friday and let me know if any questions.
We just kind of make these broad announcements and don’t really give any context. Yeah. A lot of times there’s some dragging of feet in that situation. And it’s not because people don’t want to do it, but just saying, Hey everyone, new way to track work, update all your tasks in the system by Friday. We’re not really clear. Is it because you said so? Is it because you liked this new system? Like why would I do that?
And I’m sorry, but we’re not in a day in most companies, most industries where like just because we asked them to do something, even if we’re the boss, people just do it right away. You know, wish it was different or not. That’s just not where we’re at. And so we have to bring people along. We have to explain what’s in it for them. We have to help them see that and actually communicating that is a really easy shift that we can make on teams.
So for example, when I talk about a new process or system or we’re asking a team to do anything, I always like to frame it in, Hey, I was thinking about how we could make work easier on the team or I was thinking about, we have a ton of stuff coming up, right? We’re at the end of the quarter or we’re looking at the beginning of the year and, you know, I was really thinking, well, how can I make sure all of you are set up for success?
That’s literally always how I frame it is I care about you and that’s why I’m going to tell you the next thing. Okay. This has worked so many situations because otherwise, you know, I just thought of something and I’m, you know, the perception I’m going to make your life harder, which is never what you’re trying to do, which is so silly. People would get there, but that’s where they go. So like, whatever, we’re going to deal with it.
As a business owner, when I have a lot of my mind, there is nothing more helpful than having a checklist and nothing more gratifying than crossing things off that list. And as the leader of your team and company, it might feel like the list of things you have to remember to do to be a good manager gets longer every day. That’s why I created my thriving team checklist, including 10 things you can do this week and every week to show up better for your team.
Get in the rhythm of completing these things every week and you will find that not only is your team performing better, your job is getting easier in the process. It’s the ultimate win-win. Grab your copy today at leahgarvin.com slash checklist. So we communicate that I thought about you and this is in your own best interest. Then we share what that is. So then we say, well, you know, we, maybe you’re introducing a time tracking system and you say, Hey, you know, at a certain size of the team, we could really track work on our own.
And that was working pretty well. You know, with the growth we want to have next year or the work we want to do to really reassess our pricing model and really reaching different kinds of clients and making sure that, you know, all of you are getting paid the thing that you should be, right. Or that we’re not undercharging clients. That is why we’re tracking. So I first explained the why before I even dropped the like information about the new process.
Okay. So I say, I thought about you, I care about you. And then I say, here is what I’m trying to solve and make sure of. And that’s why we’re going to try the solution. I always like to frame it as a pilot. So we’re going to pilot this new system for a few months, ask for feedback as we go, and we’ll make sure that it’s working for everyone. So that is another way that that folks get on board.
If it’s too cumbersome and it’s not working, Hey, there’ll be an opportunity to give feedback. And then you got to actually ask for that feedback, but I’m going to trust that you are doing that. Okay. And then we ask, Hey, does this make sense? What are some concerns? What are ways we can make this easier? Then even in that conversation, you leave it open for questions. Now, when we get to the end of that sort of framework, I just walked you through.
It’s pretty unlikely. Someone will leave there thinking this is just more process for processing. Like that’s usually not where people land with it. The belief that it’s just here for the hell of it is often because someone has a job of walking. There’s this like, you know, I imagine someone thinking someone’s walking around with a clipboard and checking that you’re doing the right thing. And it’s because that makes that person feel important. It’s like, no, nobody’s trying to do that.
Like, let’s just, we can’t shake that office space or whatever kind of belief if we haven’t communicated what’s in it for them. So I know you’re not making process for processing, Lord knows I’ve never made process for processing, but we get out of that belief of this is just some tax, some overhead. My manager’s making me do by always landing it in, you know, that you’re invested in them. You care about the success. You want it to be easier for work to get done.
Here is this problem you’re trying to solve that’s also in their best interest. Here’s this thing we’re going to pilot. Let’s see, collect feedback. And I will tell you, I have used this method to literally get design teams from writing their tasks on Post-its to using like a complicated engineering task tracking system, like literally proactively going, look, my tasks are in, Leah, come check it out. It works. Okay. Because when we show people what’s in it for them, you create that personal accountability.
People are excited to follow the system. So do not think that you have a team, whatever it is, where like, okay, this works for some groups, but it won’t work for me. Give it a try. And if it’s, there’s a lot of resistance, think about, okay, well maybe this thing’s still a little bit too complicated. What’s the, what’s a way to even simplify this even, even more? What’s a way to take out some steps? And this is one of the things that I support folks with.
So if you have an idea and you’re not really sure how to communicate it, or you want some information regularly from your team, maybe it’s reporting on things, maybe it’s tasks, maybe it’s, you know, whatever it looks like, then schedule an SOS call, leahgarvin.com slash SOS. We’ll talk about what really is that, you know, challenge that you’re having. It’s an hour conversation. We dive into wherever you’re getting stuck and we can figure out, okay, what are the little shifts you want to make in that communication to make sure that it really lands what folks can do?
Okay. So if you want that support, schedule an SOS call at leahgarvin.com slash SOS. And again, I think that if you try this stuff, it will work. Okay. But again, if you’re stuck, you know where to go. All right. See you next time. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.
With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
Why does my team resist new processes and call them 'process for process sake'?
When your team pushes back on a new process, it almost always means they don't understand why it exists or what's in it for them. The resistance isn't stubbornness. It's a signal that the goal behind the process was never communicated. People fill that gap with the assumption that the process is just overhead someone invented to feel important. Once you lead with the reason, explain the problem you're solving, and connect it to their success, that eye-rolling reaction tends to disappear on its own.
How do I introduce a new process to my team without getting pushback?
Start by showing you care about them before you drop any information about the change. Open with something like, 'I was thinking about how to make work easier for everyone' or 'I want to make sure you're all set up for success.' Then explain the problem you're trying to solve, not just the solution. Frame the new process as a pilot, invite feedback as you go, and ask what concerns people have. That sequence makes it clear the process exists to help them, not to add overhead to their day.
What's the right way to explain 'why' when rolling out a new system or tool to my team?
Before you say a word about the new system, name the problem it solves and tie that problem to something the team already cares about. For example, if you're introducing time tracking, connect it to making sure the team isn't undercharging clients or that pricing reflects the real work being done. Lead with that business reason first, then introduce the tool as the solution. When people see that the change protects or benefits them directly, they're far more likely to get on board and stay on board.
How do I get my team to actually follow a process consistently instead of ignoring it after a week?
Frame the rollout as a pilot rather than a permanent mandate. Tell your team you'll collect feedback as you go and adjust if something isn't working. Then actually ask for that feedback. When people feel like they have a voice in how the process evolves, they take personal ownership of it. Lia has used this approach to move entire creative teams from Post-it notes to complex task tracking systems, with team members proactively checking in to say their tasks were updated. The key is making people feel invested, not just compliant.
What do I do if my team still resists a process even after I explain the reason behind it?
Persistent resistance is usually a sign the process itself is too complicated. Before assuming it's a people problem, look at whether you can simplify the steps or reduce the friction involved. Ask what would make it easier. Sometimes the fix is removing a step, not repeating the message. If you're genuinely stuck, walk through the process with a fresh set of eyes and ask whether each step is doing real work or just adding weight. The goal is always to make getting things done easier, not harder.