Anyone who’s ever been part of a successful team knows the importance of trust. It’s pretty simple, where you have high trust, there’s a flow that creates a win-win for everyone involved. From the company’s vibe being more alive, energized, productive, and happy to sales increasing. When you know you are appreciated you go the extra mile, take ownership of your part, and care for your customers. Creativity flourishes and you’re engaged! You move mountains when trust is in place and you have each other’s backs.
Maybe you’ve also been on teams or worked in companies where trust was missing? The impact of that can take years to clean up, or it becomes the kiss of death for the company and affects each individual on the team. Wherever there’s poor leadership, fear, chaos, and uncertainty follow. When trust is lacking, well-being, and productivity plummet.
Building a company, whether you’re a startup or seasoned business, always comes with growing pains. The needs of the market change quickly; just look at the pivots many made into digital last year. When there are needs for pivots, let’s face it, it happens often, it’s important to have the right team in place.
What’s trust got to do with it? The short answer? It starts with you.
When you know what you bring and need as a person, with perspectives, personality, experience, skills, etc. you also know what you don’t bring. These are the areas you want your first hires to be great at to create a 360 perspective of your business. It becomes really easy to delegate when you get the impact on YOUR life and company by holding on to stuff that you don’t even enjoy doing.
Delegation is tied to trust too, so find the talent with the qualifications you need and delegate one thing at a time. Avoid micromanaging unless you’re in the initial stages of teaching someone something new or providing guidance on what your expectations of them are. Once they’ve got it, let them take it to the next level, assuming you hire and delegate to people with aptitude and talent for the task.
Expecting people to become something that they have no aptitude or interest in is useless. Why try to turn an introvert into an extrovert? Allow people to find their path and focus on the end results and targets within the given timelines.
For some professions, you need a degree to do business so there the titles are important as is the talent for the job. You can be great or average even with a title.
For many other professions, you can learn on the job and work your way up, with talent, persistence, elbow grease, and fun. Having people around you who believe in you will create trust, and that empowerment will create increased productivity and loyalty to you and your business.
Many different business models and tools on the market can help. One doesn’t exclude the other. In fact, I’ve tried many myself, all adding different aspects.
Again, it starts with you. What do you need right now?
The courses that have brought me the most insights and transformation are all strengths-and possibility-based, including energy modalities, where you tune into what you know. Most of them were in person as I like that, several were online.
It’s easy to get distracted, listening to, or reading about other people’s opinions. Often, you end up going down rabbit holes in the process only to find that you missed the target, again. You can’t put your finger on what or why, you just know that something is missing, a piece of the puzzle if you will.
When you build a team focusing on what actually energizes each individual you have a much higher rate of success. Environments, where there’s a value to contribute your talents, may actually outperform your expectations and create happy people. A win-win, right?
Engagement is the “priceless” category and in many companies, it’s a big deal. For those where engagement isn’t a focus, it needs to be. Gallup’s State of the American workforce statistics, prior to 2020, measured that only 35% of the workforce were engaged! Imagine the results of having 65% engaged instead?!
My experience from entrepreneurship is that the engagement is higher and it’s in startup mode you lay the foundation of the culture you desire to create.
You need fans. Communicate who you are and where you’re heading. Don’t pretend to be someone that you’re not. Customer loyalty and external perception affect your business. Serve your customers well and authentically. Don’t make promises you or your company can’t deliver on.
So, where do you start?
#1 You.
When you get clear on why you’re creating or leading the company, the perspectives and talents you bring, and what needs to be fulfilled, you’ll have a sense of who to add to bring your vision alive. And if you don’t have a clear vision, well, hire people that can help you.
#2 Create a talent-based company
Focus on creating a company where people are empowered to be themselves. Some of your staff will function best with full autonomy, others need a bit of direction and hand-holding. Create an environment where it’s safe to fail and you’ll see creativity and ideas flourish from all levels of the company. Together you create a 360 view of how your products or services are being received on the market.
I use the tools from CliftonStrengths® and BP10™ from Gallup plus GeniusU’s Wealth / Talent Dynamics. Together, they provide a great understanding of your needs and success path. In addition, there are many practical tools that are added and customized to fit your specific needs.
#3 Remove deadwood quickly
Nothing hurts a company more than incompetence, bullying, gossip, and resistance. Nip it in the bud quickly!
First, check and see what’s going on with each person without judgment, and have a 1:1 conversation. Maybe they’re in a role where they can’t thrive, or on a team that’s not a fit. If the person has talents that are valuable to you, ask the person for their suggested solution to shift things around, and see how that fits with you. If it’s a no-win situation, release the person. Working with people that are not happy and that don’t produce will affect your company culture, small or big.
#4 Invest in coaching
Start with you, then take it to the team, at a minimum provide each person with the assessments and a debrief. The awareness that comes from simply knowing your talents can make big shifts in someone’s reality that will affect your company and performance positively. It will also provide you with a great overview of the talent pool on your team independent of their experience, training, and skills.
To summarize:
Where there’s trust, there’s flow and engagement. To create a winning team simply extend your trust in them. You hired your team to help build your company and take it further, yes? Allow them to show you what they’ve got in a safe environment. You’ll be surprised, in a good way.
