Are you treating your Strategic Assistant® like a task-taker or as a true support partner? In this episode, Shannon Waller shares seven practical ways to build a stronger working relationship so you can save time, reduce friction, and create more ease in your day-to-day business.

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Show Notes:

• Your Strategic Assistant is not there simply to take orders but to help manage the moving parts of your business and life.
• The best support relationships start with knowing each other’s strengths, needs, and natural working styles.
• Profiles like Kolbe, PRINT®, CliftonStrengths®, and Working Genius® can help you understand your own style and your assistant’s strengths.
• The Communication Builder is a great tool that helps you understand how each of you prefers to give and receive information, especially under stress.
• This is a relationship, not a transaction, so commitment and mutual respect are non-negotiable.
• Frequent communication creates better support, fewer misses, and a much smoother day-to-day rhythm.
• Daily huddles, project check-ins, and regular strategic meetings keep both of you aligned.
• Your Strategic Assistant should have enough context and clarity to help manage the details that keep you moving forward.
• Be willing to be managed because support partners often see the timing, structure, and follow-through more clearly than you do.
• Your Strategic Assistant is an essential “Who” on your team, often helping with the work that makes everything recur smoothly.
• Great partnerships are built on humor, grace, and a willingness to learn when things don’t go perfectly.
• The goal isn’t a short-term arrangement, but a long-term relationship that grows with you and strengthens your productivity and impact over time.

Resources:

Kolbe A™ Index

Working Genius

CliftonStrengths

DISC

PRINT

Unique Ability®

The Communication Builder

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Are you hanging on to a team member you already know is wrong for your company? In this episode, Shannon Waller talks about the real cost of waiting. You’ll hear practical examples of wrong-fit scenarios, why your best people and clients feel it first, and how to make clear, respectful decisions that strengthen your whole team.

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Show Notes:

• Once you know someone is a wrong-fit team member, your only strategic option is to take action, not wait.
• Delaying a tough people decision implicitly tells your best team members that you’re willing to tolerate mediocrity.
• Keeping a wrong-fit person costs you twice: your best team members lose morale, and your clients feel the drag in service and results.
• Your A-Players will eventually ask themselves why they should keep going above and beyond if you allow B and C performance to stand.
• The right team culture feels like an all-star team where everyone is growing, contributing, and pulling in the same direction.
• There are different levels of wrong-fit—from the new hire who can’t do the job to the long-term “legacy” team member your company has outgrown.
• High producers with bad habits, poor teamwork, or misaligned values are often the most expensive wrong fits in your organization.
• If someone’s values clash with your culture, they’ll build their own agenda inside your company.
• People who stop growing eventually slow down your entire company’s growth, no matter how long they’ve been with you or how nice they are.
• Legacy team members can hold the business emotionally and operationally hostage if you don’t intentionally capture their knowledge and evolve the role.
• Clients can usually see wrong-fit behavior before you act, and they’ll quietly question your standards when you don’t address it.
• When you uphold your standards and let a wrong-fit person go, your best team members often feel relieved and more loyal.
• Taking decisive, thoughtful action—legally, ethically, and gracefully—protects your culture and signals to everyone that you mean what you say.
• Moving a bright person into a better-fit role is a powerful way to protect your culture, keep great talent, and honor their Unique Ability®.
• Thinking about a people issue doesn’t create progress; taking clear action is how you learn what works and what doesn’t.
• Your job as the entrepreneur is to build and protect a high-standard Unique Ability® Team that can deliver the top-quality experience your clients are paying for.

Resources:

Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller

Kolbe A™ Index

Unique Ability

Process Suite