Episode 140
"We'll See" Is Not a Plan: Leadership Lessons for the New Year
It’s 2025, and it’s time to rethink how the words we use every day impact our work and relationships. Let’s dive into the language that holds us back—like “try,” “we’ll see,” and “it’s fine”—and how to replace it with something that drives real accountability and results.
Welcome to a new year and a new opportunity to fine-tune your communication. The words you choose can either build trust or break it, inspire action or create confusion. In this episode, we’re cutting through the clutter to show you why phrases like “try,” “we’ll see,” and “it’s fine” are sabotaging your workplace relationships and what to say instead.
We’re sharing personal stories, practical examples, and actionable tips for leveling up your conversations with your team, customers, and even yourself. From setting clearer expectations to eliminating excuses, this episode is all about how we can use our words to build stronger connections and drive better results.
Whether you're leading a crew, managing a team, or just trying to make life run smoother, this is the conversation you didn’t know you needed to hear.
Highlights:
- How “try” sets you up for failure—and what to say instead.
- Why “we’ll see” is just another way of saying “no” (without actually saying it).
- The hidden inefficiency of “circle back” and how to avoid it.
- How “help” can make people defensive—and why “support” works better.
- The dangerous comfort of saying “it’s fine” when things really aren’t fine.
It’s a new year, and your communication deserves a fresh start. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who’s ready to drop the excuses and start communicating with clarity. Let’s build a better 2025 together!
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Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar BS and I am your award winning cohost Brad and we have the other award winning cohost in Detroit, Michigan here to bring you another fun, filled, exciting, great episode of the Blue Collar BS podcast to our tens and tens and tens of listeners that we appreciate and love and adore. So thank you for all your support in all of your
Steve Doyle (:Thank
Steve Doyle (:Steve.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:comments and follow ups, et cetera. So thank you all.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, we appreciate them.
Brad Herda (:So Mr. Doyle, what's going on today in Motor City?
Steve Doyle (:Well, today in the Motor City, let's see here. It's, are we in January or November? I forget which month we're
Brad Herda (:Well, depends on when you're recording in November. Debuting in January.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. So, you know, it's we're right at the the ass end of kind of tolerable weather before it starts to turn. So it's it is turned to the months of grayness with rain and wind.
Brad Herda (:Yep. I might have one last round of golf.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, going mountain biking. So that'll be good. Or not really mountain biking, but more cross country biking.
Brad Herda (:essay, there's not a lot of mountains in your part of Michigan.
Steve Doyle (:And not a lot of mountains, we just like to throw these trails in the woods and there's a little bit of elevation, but not a whole lot. And then we go through the pastures, the farmer's fields, things like that.
Brad Herda (:to get chased by cows. Perfect.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. Yep. Every now and then a coyote. So we're huh. Exactly. Exactly.
Brad Herda (:can't believe how fast they are.
Brad Herda (:so this episode here, we're, we're targeting a January start. So it's a new year and kind of talk pre-show what better way to start a new year and work on your leadership journey and, or better employee or better customer service than to think about the language you're using.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. So the.
Brad Herda (:So start out explaining about language in general there, Mr. Doyles. You are the EQ professional here on the show.
Steve Doyle (:eq. Well, when we talk language, we're not. It's not just the what's spoken. It's also anything that's observable, like how we act, how we feel, how we portray that. Exactly. You know, are you shocked? Are you, you know, your mannerisms all come into that. Your tonality comes into that play. And, you know, for me, like language, like if somebody is just talking, but they add a little bit of wine to it.
Not, know, the grape juice type wine. We're talking about, you know, the kind of wine... Bingo! Bingo! Right? But we're talking about that wine that just in your ear, like, no, wrong, no, we're not doing this type language. All of those components go into language.
Brad Herda (:Stop talking about your daughters
Steve Doyle (:So they all have an effect in how we communicate with someone else, the responses that they receive, the responses we receive from them, and how our conversations become fluid. So that to me, in a roundabout way, is everything about language. It's everything that is observable and hearable, if you will. And for those that like to sign, obviously you can sign with an attitude. I've seen it. It's pretty cool.
Go to those rap shows where you actually have people where they're signing concerts. It's amazing.
Brad Herda (:And we are an auditory show. So, you know.
Steve Doyle (:Use your imagination, go look it up. That's what I want you to do. I want you to go look that up. So.
Brad Herda (:Yes, the the fun I always have, you know, when my wife yells at me from time to time on different things. I'm like, if you just take it to court and read back the transcript, what were the words I said? But it's the way but the way you said it's the way you said it, though, is the problem. OK. But those were not the words. Right. So how people receive your message allows them to tell the story in their brain. So that's why you need to have two way communication.
Steve Doyle (:Are you gonna throw the replay flag?
huh.
Brad Herda (:and conversations versus one way autocratic conversations with employees, team members, customers, et cetera, because a customer may hear one thing and you may have have a different expectation than they do. An example, one of my one of the words that you should take out of your language in 2025, unless you really, really mean it. And even even if you mean it, you shouldn't use it is the word try.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:What? Well, I'll try to do that.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, to me, when somebody says I'll try to do that, that means go get bent. I have no intention of ever, ever try doing that job or taking on that task at all. Cause you've given yourself a built in excuse not to do it.
Steve Doyle (:But you know, you could.
You're saying we need to leverage and listen to what Yoda says? Do or do not. There is no try.
Brad Herda (:Might be a trademark violation, but I'm not sure.
Steve Doyle (:It might be, but we'll run with it. But let's let's dive into that a little bit more, right? Because when we talk about the word try. Right, it's what is it really saying? About us. When we say yeah, I'll try.
Brad Herda (:Right.
Brad Herda (:I'm not committed.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:I'm not committed to this. might be afraid. I might not know how. So if you have a staff member, employee or customer or whomever telling you they're going to try to do something, you need to dig deeper. You need to understand really what is going on here. And you can be an asshole and, and get them to commit to something, which I've done with my team members in the past where it's like, well, I'll try to get that done. So are you going to get it done for me? Are you not going to get done for me? I don't care what the answer is. Just tell me what the answer is. Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Are you going try? Are you going to get it done today or are you going to get done on Thursday? Doesn't matter to me which day you choose. I just need to know which day you're going to get it done.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:I'll try it by Friday.
Brad Herda (:Cool, but what day are you going to get it to me?
Steve Doyle (:You know what? I'll get it to you by Friday.
Brad Herda (:than I can expect it on Friday.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, you can inspect it on a Friday. Yep, perfect.
Brad Herda (:Yep. On a Friday, on a Friday, sometime in the calendar year of some sort and some place. Now you're just being an ass.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Now I'm being an S. Now I'm being the number one. Right? But.
Brad Herda (:Yes, the word try needs to come out of your vocabulary because it doesn't it gives everybody an out to not do the thing. That's expected.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, so when we shift away from TRY, it basically is making us look like we have a stronger sense of responsibility, we have more confidence and determination.
And that's the people ultimately you're looking for.
Brad Herda (:do you say say what you do to have the whole election season everybody's all up in arms I don't care about the words they use and what I care about reactions they act what actually truly happens we can say all the words but until the actions match it doesn't what's a word that you'd want to take out of people's vocabulary
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, exactly.
Steve Doyle (:gosh, I would love to take out. We'll see.
Brad Herda (:That's very similar to try, isn't it?
Steve Doyle (:It is it is very similar to try but it is I find it to be more common than try. Yep, we'll see. We shall see. Yep, we shall see. We shall see that you have done absolutely jack all nothing.
Brad Herda (:Right. Yeah, we'll see how that works out. Well, it's work out exactly like it is today because you did nothing to impact the future.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
you
Steve Doyle (:Exactly. Exactly.
Brad Herda (:We'll see. All right, now I know how to piss you off.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, yeah, yep.
Brad Herda (:Steve, are you working on that cast? Yeah, we'll see.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yep. We're to have that done today. We'll see. Uh-huh.
Brad Herda (:That's a no. That is a hard no. So why don't you just come out and say no. What do you think from your training experiences, et cetera? Why do think it's so difficult for people to say no when asked to do something?
Steve Doyle (:It is a no, is absolute.
Steve Doyle (:Because they don't want to let someone else down. So they think by pacifying them with the we'll see that they the hope that they're portraying that somebody will do that. But if you're consistently day in day out going well, we'll see. We already know what that answer is.
Brad Herda (:And how does that help build trust in a team or trust in an environment?
Steve Doyle (:It doesn't build trust. Well, it does. Let's put it this way. It does build trust. They trust that the answer is no, and it's never going to happen. So anytime you open your mouth and say, we'll see, they trust that the answer is not happening.
Brad Herda (:So anybody who's a leader out there and you just heard the, the try and we'll see, and that's your go to, to not direct and lead your team. Your team is already telling themselves the story that you're not a leader and we're not going to follow you. And no matter what you say and when you say it, it's not going to happen.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right, exactly. Exactly. So just think about that and how that actually impacts everything that's going on for you.
Brad Herda (:What's another word or phrase you don't want to see in language moving forward?
Steve Doyle (:So Brad.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Steve Doyle (:You know...
One for me that I hear is, let's circle back to this. Let's circle back. And I...
And honestly, it's like, why are we circling back? Why didn't we just freaking deal with it right then? Why didn't we take the responsibility to actually pause and deal with it? But no, we just kicked the can down the road. now we've got a quote unquote circle back to the problem. We have to have another meeting to circle back because we couldn't deal with it to begin with initially.
So now I've got all this inefficiency, more wasted meetings, more meetings that could have just been an email or a text because we've got to circle back. We've got to circle back. somebody you want to hit hot buttons today. Let's go. I left G. Let's go, baby.
Brad Herda (:Sound like an angry tone there, Stephen.
Brad Herda (:No, that was an episode a while ago. That was the end of the year show. That's the LFG end of the year. Now we're in the new year.
Steve Doyle (:That's right. That's right. That's right. So Brad, so Brad, what's a word for you that you want to see removed?
Brad Herda (:I want to see the word help.
Steve Doyle (:Help. Isn't that a song?
Brad Herda (:Yes, it is. So particularly on the sales side and or on the leadership side, if you're trying to tell your customers, well, we're going to help you solve that problem. Immediately they're on the defensive. Because if I say, Steve, I'm going to help you. You know, dye your hair.
The immediate opportunity is, well, my hair sucks, so therefore I have a problem. So help from one way to the other is a word that creates negativity in many cases and puts people on guard.
Steve Doyle (:It does.
Brad Herda (:And I learned this from one of our past guests, Andy Wines back in the day and his book. He's got out there at words bucket matter. And, he taught me that from the military perspective that, know, guys in the military, they don't want your help. What they want is your support. What people want is your support to go down the path that they believe is the right path or direction to guide them in the right direction. They don't want the here's it is.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:We need your support to accomplish the mission.
We're more than capable of doing the thing, making it happen and finding the opportunity. And too often in sales pitches and in leadership meetings and, you know, going through L 10 meetings, what help do you need to solve that problem?
Steve Doyle (:I don't need your damn help.
Brad Herda (:How many people in an outside meeting or in a stand up toolbox meeting are going to raise their hands and say, yep, I need help.
Steve Doyle (:Not too many.
Brad Herda (:And then you go out the rest of the day and nothing gets happened. Nothing happens. And then the leader of the foreman or like, well, I asked you if you need any help and you didn't tell me you needed any. Well, I didn't need any help. What I needed was support because I'm more than I needed another body. I didn't need help. I just needed support for X, Y, and Z. So the word help is very dangerous and I don't like it because it creates a negative connotation.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:It puts people in defensive mode right away.
Steve Doyle (:It's interesting. So I was recently listening to a podcast and something along the yeah, weird. was listening to one. I'm on one. Was I listening to ours? I mean, I could have, but the answer is no. It wasn't at the time. But I was one. One thing that was brought up is. Think of your partner saying I need help. Did your partner ever going to say I need help?
Brad Herda (:are
We listen to our podcast.
Steve Doyle (:your spouse, your loved ones, do they really tell you I need help?
No, they usually don't. What are they telling you? I'm fine. You look at them, you know they're not fine. You know, I would love to see the phrase, I'm fine removed because we're not fine. We're not fine at all.
Brad Herda (:don't put on that don't go down the I'm fine. Don't go down with the I'm fine path either those are
Brad Herda (:Yes
Brad Herda (:Do you need help with that? Nope, I'm fine. I'm good.
Steve Doyle (:I'm fine. Okay. You know, and you can even do it in a tone like, yeah, I'm fine. Okay, I get it. You're not. But you know what? You're not wanting to communicate with me what the problem is. So I'm going to take it at face value because I know you're not fine, but you're not telling me that you're that what the problem is. So don't want to talk about it. So peace out girl scout. Let's Peace out girl scout.
Brad Herda (:Now you're just an asshole.
Yeah, okay.
Wow.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. I'm fine, Brad. I'm fine. I'm fine. got it. I'm Fine.
Brad Herda (:I wish I wish you did. I have far less of my plate.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, I had a client. That's what he said every time to answer and his partner.
She hated it. The rest of the team hated it. You bring a question, you bring it. So would you, so Bob, what do you think if we do a or a do solution a it's fine. It's fine. I didn't ask you. It was fine. I want to know what you thought about solution. Should we do solution or not? Yes or no. it's fine. And then two weeks later, you're bitching and complaining about something because you didn't take the time to voice your opinion or share your emotions about it because
Steve Doyle (:That's fine.
Brad Herda (:You were didn't want to have conflict, didn't want to do ever healthy conflict in communication is good. What Steve just ranted about is not healthy conversation.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:For those paying attention, just say no, is not healthy conflict. But healthy conflict in between leaders, individual contributors and leader to leader, peer to peer. It's all good. You need to have.
Steve Doyle (:No, it's not. It really is not. It is not.
Steve Doyle (:We don't agree 100 % of the time. don't we we may see eye to eye on 60 % of the things the other 40 % We either will say yeah, that's fine. Okay, whatever That's good. It's not Because we're too worried about the ramifications and what are they gonna think? I don't know. they're gonna get upset Okay Let him get upset, but you know what cuz being upset it's temporary and team work through it
And that's all it is. It's all in the tonality and the phrasing and the words you choose to help solve what's going on.
Brad Herda (:And the key statement there is the words you choose is a choice. The things that come out of your mouth from the vernacular use, you get to decide. And too often we make it an unconscious behavior versus a conscious behavior. So our goal for everybody for 2024 is eliminate some of this crap language, be conscious about it.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Think about how many times use the word try, we'll see, circle back, it's fine, help. All those words that can bring out reactions that you're not looking for or lack of commitment. Pay attention. It's like when you buy a red car, you see all the red cars. Pay attention to how much that happens in your workplace, how much that goes through and then ponder how come you're frustrated with work not being done.
Steve Doyle (:Help. Help.
Steve Doyle (:Yup.
Brad Herda (:or completed or activities taking place or whatever it might be that's in your environment. Rest assured it's coming around. A lot of it is based around your language, which then creates expectations. Cause if Steve tells me he's going to have it to me by Friday, a Friday as being the asshole he was, instead of this route, you know, the upcoming Friday, that everybody and their brother understood it to be.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Thank
Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Versus I'll try to get it to you. The expectation is way different. The accountability is way different on both sides of that relationship. So it's a new year, new language folks and Steve, thank you for the conversation and until next time have a great weekend mountain biking and don't hurt yourself or get or even by coyotes. Alright, perfect sir. Talk to you later.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Steve Doyle (:So I plan on it. All right. Yep. Later.
