Team Building: Developing an "A" Team That Delivers Better Results Than You, Without You
How good are you at team building - developing a team so strong there’s not much you need to do? Learn how to build an A team that delivers better results than you, without you.
It's the dream of most leaders and entrepreneurs to no longer be required by their business. But unfortunately, as things grow, they get so used to being at the center of everything, and always buried, that they get stuck here.
So the question is, "How good are you at building a team so strong there's not much you need to do?"
Here's a quote from Harvey Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire Company, "The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." And I couldn't agree more. Our job as leaders is to lead people to greatness, to lead them in a way where they grow stronger and get better - and better, and better.
And truly, a leader in a Fortune 500 company is not that different than a school teacher of seven-year-old children. It's the same principle: Taking people who have an existing skillset, and trying to have them acquire, at the end of the year, a higher skill set.
As leaders, that's all we're supposed to do – although, sometimes, we get so caught up in the work, we forget we're supposed to grow people.
Key point: Build a team that delivers better results than you, without you.
Better results without your assistance - that is the ultimate success of a leader. You can tell that because, when the leader steps away, the team continues to thrive.
You need to work on this if:
- Your team isn't chock-full of A players.
- You cling to one or more "Toxic A's" because you think the results that they give you are worth the havoc
- Anyone on your team, or anyone on your direct report team is a C player.
- Your interview process consists of a series of 60 to 90-minute interviews with some clever or interesting questions.
- You hire people without test-driving their talents. People are wonderful at telling you how good they are, you need to see them in action first before you hire them.
Team Assessment Exercise
Download the Chapter 10 Team Building Worksheets for exercises that will help you understand and plot your existing team. If you're a CEO, you want to plot your direct reports, as well as their direct reports. Initially, we'll just talk about your direct reports (but generally, as a leader, you should be always focused two layers down.)
Worksheet notes:
- Performance - Low on the left, high on the right.
- Culture Fit - High and low.
- Box A - These are the amazing people that we dream of having on our teams. They absolutely deliver the results, and naturally fit the culture. You trust them, they're easy to work with.
- Box B - These are also wonderful people who you naturally work really well with - they just don't always deliver the goods. You often have to follow up, or hold their hand to get things done. They are great fit, not always great deliverers.
- Box C - These are the people who don’t fit the culture of the company. They're awkward, don't fit well, aren't normally trusted, and don't deliver the results. These people need to find a job in a different company because they're not a culture fit, they shouldn't even be there.
- Toxic A's - These are high performers. They deliver the results, but they're just generally jerks. They don't fit the culture. They are irritating to other people. They drive people nuts. You cringe when you talk to them, or you cringe when you get an email from them. If you're going to be a high-performing leader, the secret is to have a high performing team. And in my mind, there's no room for anyone below the line, and you've got to be an A to stay. So, we're focused on the top right box only.
Now, if you're okay with being mediocre, have lots of people in the different areas, kind of have a well-rounded team. We don't want that. We want high performers, top right box only, maybe a couple of B's. In the companies that I work with, we do not allow people to stay below the line. If they are, we give them chances and opportunities to step up, but they’ll create so much havoc, they've got to go sooner or later. They've just chosen the wrong company to work at.
For more resources, check out Chapter 10 in Your Oxygen Mask First - we get into details about what to do with the A's, the B's, the C's and, of course, the Toxic A's. We've also got some information we share with you about the methodology of Topgrading (a phenomenal approach to hiring), and a few other tools to help you improve the people part of your business.
Summary
Building a team that is so strong that you're almost useless, is an absolutely achievable goal. It might take three to five years. You need to make some really tough people decisions, and/or you may need to invest a whole bunch of time helping your existing team get stronger, or maybe modifying their roles to put them into a place where they can win.
Getting Tough Constructive Feedback
How do you rate at getting honest opinions about your performance as a leader? Learn how to get the truth about your performance, and how you need to improve.
This is kind of counterintuitive because lots of people truly want to hear praise in what they're doing well, but if you talk to high performers - the highest performers - they actually want tough feedback to help them improve.
Unfortunately, their leaders sometimes are uncomfortable giving that feedback, which essentially takes away the opportunities they need to grow and get better.
"I prefer an ugly truth to a pretty lie." - Shakira
And there are many people in the world that would rather have you just tell them pretty lies. I've just found for high performing leaders, that's not the case. Of course, people want to know what they're doing well, but high performers are more interested in how they can improve. And I'm sure that's the case for you.
You know you really need to work on getting constructive feedback if:
- You wonder how effective you are as a leader – you actually don't know, you're unsure.
- You can't name four people who regularly give you uncomfortable but valuable feedback. These people are invaluable.
- You haven't sought opinions on your performance through something formal, like a 360 review in the past two years.
- You wonder what your board, or reports, really thinks of you.
- You haven't received uncomfortable feedback from somebody that works with you, or you work for, in the past six months.
Key point: Tough constructive feedback gives us the data and insights to help us to grow and get better; and often the people around us don't want to tell us what we need to know, because they're trying to be nice. Unfortunately, they're holding us back.
In the chapter, we talk about lots of different things - including 360's and the right way to do them. I believe it's a team event, and there are other techniques you can use to get excellent feedback to help you grow.
One of my favorite tools, and one of the simplest you can use, is called the After Action Review, or Project Review. This is where you sit down with a team at the end of any given project, and just talk about what went well, what didn't, and how you will improve next time.
And amazingly, because the feedback is not about a person - it's about a process or a project - you can see where the leaders involved in the project could be more effective, and it gives you tons of ideas of how to improve in a very nonjudgmental way.
So here are three specific questions that you ask at the end of a project. Part of the process is to ask your team to think about these questions, come prepared to the meeting, and then you discuss;
- What went well?
- What did not go well?
- What did you learn?
And then list three things you do differently next time to improve the process and the outcome of the project.
It's a very simple tool. And because it's done in an open, non-judgmental way, it's easy for everyone to put the truth on the table without formal mechanisms. And as a leader, all you have to do is sit back, listen, and wonder how you could prevent or better manage these situations.
If this is something that you think you need to do, I'd recommend that you make it one of your goals for the Quarter. And if you don't have the tools yet, you can download the Quarterly Planner and other resources here.
Summary
Getting great feedback, although awkward, is the fuel we need to get stronger and grow. You just need to make sure you're getting enough of it.
And don't worry: the people around you, whether at work or in your life, have ideas about how you could be a more effective person. It's just your job to make sure you ask for the feedback.
Lifelong Learning - Learn Like Your Life Depends on It
How do you rate yourself when it comes to the practice of lifelong learning?
If your ideas and insights are based on experiences from 10 or more years ago, it’s time get learning. Your life - and your capability as a leader - depends on it.
The funny thing about learning is that we do a ton of it in our early days in school. And for some weird reason, people think that, once they've finished school, they can be really successful without continuing to learn.
It actually doesn't make a lot of sense when you step back and look at it.
A beautiful quote from Mark Twain, "The man or woman who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read."
We often feel sorry for illiterate people in our world (of which there are many), or people who struggle with reading. Unfortunately, those of us that can, sometimes don't leverage this to our own advantage, and continue to rely on skills that we would have learnt 10 or 20 years ago - and then wonder why we're not successful today.
Key point - You need to double your capability every three to five years to deserve the designation of being a leader.
You heard me right: to deserve the designation of being a leader.
Leadership is a very important responsibility, both in terms of the growth and development of the people that you lead, and the success of the company or business that you're in charge of. If you don't continue to stay at your best and at the top of your game, really you should step out of the way.
Everyone can practice lifelong learning - and continue to learn and grow. They’ve just got to put some time and energy into it.
You really need to work on this if:
- The ideas and insights you have are based on experiences from 10 or more years ago.
- You have no formal learning scheduled for the next 12 months.
- You haven't read a book since you finished your formal education - unless it was required, or you were forced to.
- You haven't learned about a completely new topic in the past year
- Learning is basically a survival tactic for you: you acquire knowledge to handle the current situations, but not strategically to prepare for the future.
In reality, if you're okay with just being average or mediocre in your career, you can ignore me. But if you want to be the best - and continue to be at the top of your game - taking on more responsibility, having a bigger impact, and leading a company to somewhere great, then you need to take this one pretty seriously.
What and How
It's important to know what you want to learn: The things that are going to help you to grow in your sweet spot. The how you learn is a big deal that's often overlooked.
For myself, there are a few key things about how I love to learn, and learn best. The biggest is experiential. If I have a choice, I will hire an expert, a coach, a guide - whatever it happens to be in a certain area - and have them work with me, one on one. I like to learn at a very fast pace, and I like to learn by doing, so hiring someone like that is an ideal thing for me.
The second thing I like to do for learning is to attend conferences where there are multiple speakers, over one or two days. So I get little snippets on topics. These keynote speakers give you, in 60 minutes, their best material, and then I can decide which ones I want to pursue further.
The third is books. I read a study years ago that the top leaders read 24 books a year. Yes, 24.
It was actually done by Brad Smart in his book Topgrading - and I found out they were half business, half personal.
Well, I'm telling you, there was no way I was reading 24 books at that time. But from that moment on, I did. But I have a great little secret that helps me to continue reading 20, 30, 40 books a year. And the secret is thanks to Mr. Steve Jobs: it's the thing called the iPhone and iTunes. I listen to all my books on audio, and it's perfect for me. It feels more like a conversation with the author and fits very well into my travel schedule. So if you see me when I'm traveling - whether in the airport, on the airplane, or even exercising in the mornings - I'll always be listening to an audiobook.
Actually, the truth is either I'm listening to an audiobook or I'm on the phone! I use my travel time as my classroom time to get through all these audiobooks, and it works extremely well for me.
It doesn't matter how you do it. Maybe you like to attend classes, maybe you like to watch videos online, or maybe you like to read books and, if you do, mine's a great book you could choose to read. The key is, find the way you like to do it, and then when you have the right how, it's easier to go and work on the what you need to learn.
Strategic Learning Grid
The tool I'd like to share with you is called the Strategic Learning Grid. It's really, really simple, but the challenge is for you to download it and fill it out right now.
- What are your top strategic initiatives for the next three to five years - whether it's the top initiatives in your work or maybe some personal goals?
- What do you want to master to support this initiative?
- How would you like to learn - a way you would like?
- When?
This is not rocket science: it's a simple way to think about your learning, to allow yourself to be clear on what you need to learn – and you’ll be more likely to do it because you're going to do it a way that you like.
How to Stop Procrastinating -- Lick Your Toads.
How do you rate at making sure annoying little things get done before they pile up? Here’s how to stop procrastinating, and free your time and energy for bigger and better things.
Lick Your Toads…this goes back to a keynote I used to do about 20 years ago, and it's all about procrastination.
I'll tell you the story about it in a minute. First a question:
How do you rate at making sure annoying little things get done before they pile up?
I want you to imagine that I just told you that I'm giving you this great, big, smelly, fresh out-of- the-ditch toad, and that you're going to have to lick it by the end of next year. And when I say lick it, you have to lick it across its back, across the top of its head, under its slimy chin, under its underbelly. You're going to have to lick it all the way around - one full lap of the toad. Let's say you had till the end of the year to do it, and let's assume that that's 12 months from today.
When are most people likely to actually go and lick that toad or do that ugly nasty task?
Well, most people will tell you they'll do it right away, but they're lying - or they're lying to themselves. Most people are going to wait 'til the end of the year, and then this ugly, smelly task will be haunting them, and they’ll be thinking about it constantly from now until then. And likely the toad will gather more friends, the next thing you know, one toad turns into 20, turns into 50, turns into 100.
When they're sleeping, they'll be having nightmares about it. When they wake up, they'll be dreading looking at it. It'll follow them around and weigh them down. At the very end, when you actually have to go and lick this thing - let's say it's New Year's Eve and it's 11 o'clock and we've agreed that at the stroke of midnight - you're going to finally lick this thing.
We get down to five minutes before, one minute before, 30 seconds before, just imagine how you're feeling: your heart's going to be pounding, your hands are going to be sweating, you're going to be thinking about doing this thing - anticipating it, and feeling absolutely horrible.
So finally, at the stroke of midnight, one full year later - after thinking about this thing over and over again, day and night, and wondering about it, and thinking about it, and dreading it - at the stroke of midnight, you finally lick this thing and get the task complete.
What's the first thing you say to yourself? Usually it's, "Phew! Glad it's over."
What's the second thing that's going to go through your mind? For most people it's, "That wasn't near as bad as I expected."
And, "Why the heck did I waste a whole year of my life dragging this thing around?"
The Nature of the Beast
And that's what toads are about! They're these seemingly inconsequential things that for some reason we dread dealing with. As a result, we drag them around, and they aren't high value. They don't lead to our big company goals or our personal goals or our life goals, but they burn an unnecessary amount of energy. It's actually a complete waste. So, the idea here is to not let these little lingering things build up.
Now they can be anything from not having your will updated, or getting life insurance to getting some dental work done; going to the doctor, fixing a lose molding in your office or your home. Maybe it's a toilet that keeps leaking, maybe it's a light that's burnt out, maybe you need to get your gutters cleaned. You've got leaky air in a tire, you've got a long-lost friend you haven't talked to, or an item that you borrowed from someone else that you haven't returned.
There can be tons of these, - little inconsequential things that build up, and weigh us down bit by bit by bit. Believe it or not, I've seen a number of very successful high performing people get buried by these things.
You need to work on this - and you need to think about it – if:
- I'm already making you nervous just talking about these, and lots of ideas are flashing through your head of items that you know that are lingering loose ends that you need to tie up
- That it's not unusual for to-dos to kick around for a month or more
- Certain lingering to-dos cause you frustration, anxiety, panic attacks - your heart skips a beat because they stress you out
- People repeatedly ask you to follow through on certain tasks that you keep putting off. Some people are noticeably annoyed at your lack of follow-through on some important things to them, although for some reason they're not important to you.
Key point: the little things you procrastinate consume far, far more energy than you believe - and than they deserve.
We’ve got to get them out of the way today.
The secret to licking toads, usually, is don't do it yourself. Find someone else, or another mechanism, to get them done.
How to Stop Procrastinating Using The Five D's
In the book Your Oxygen Mask First, I talk about five D’s, or five different techniques.
- Do it. Bite the bullet immediately.
- Don’t do it. Say ‘no’ to the person who requested it, if it’s simply not yours to do.
- Delegate it. Assign an appropriate person.
- Delete it. Let go of it entirely. Decide it’s not going to happen.
- Date it. Commit to completing it by a specific date sometime down the road.
Read about them, and then figure out which one of those techniques will you use. One of the D's is to delegate – it’s my favorite. Find someone else who's willing to take that on, and have them get it done - even if it seems silly.
Look at the tools in Chapter 17 - at the master plan, which is the integrated plan for your entire life, and your basically existence, as well as the quarterly version of the plan. On the quarterly version, there's a section every quarter to make a list of six toads you need to clean up. Two at work, two for self, two in life. Just keep managing this list, and don't let them build up.
So there you have it: Lick Your Toads, lick your nastiest toads. Ideally, lick a nasty toad first thing each day, and get them out of the way so all this clutter and burden doesn't build up.
Double Your Personal Resilience
You need personal resilience - the strength of your body, your mind, and your spirit - to help you take on the big challenges that lead to achieving your goals, in work and in life.
Learn how to create, and stick to, Resilience Rituals, that allow you win, no matter what life throws at you.
I just love this chapter and the principle of personal resilience. The question is:
How good are you at making time for the things that build and maintain your resilience both for your body, your mind, and your spirit?
When I say spirit, it doesn't mean spirits. Spirits are usually indication that you're off track. If you're finding you need to drink more - or that you're drinking and you haven't before - or you're drinking to put yourself to sleep or anything like that, that's an indication that your resilience is probably off - and you're starting to rely on coping mechanisms to try and make it through the day. Not a good scene. Probably an indication you need to dig into this chapter.
Here’s a great quote on personal resilience: "A good half of the art of living is resilience." I think that's what it's all about. Some people talk about grit, which is having strong determination - and that's good - but grit alone can get you into trouble. You need the resilience, the strength of your body, your mind, and your spirit, to help you to take on these big challenges that lead to what you want, in your work and in your life.
Work on this if any of these are true:
- You continually run out of energy, feel tired, or get sick
- If you get sick more than once a year, you need to work on your resilience. Human beings normally live in a natural state of health
- You're not enjoying the challenges or the wins at work, or in your life. Things just start getting blah
- You regularly allow other people's priorities to bump the activities you want to do for your own wellness, and things that make you feel good and strong
- You've stopped doing the activities that bring you a feeling of reward and inspiration, and maybe you don't even know what they are anymore. This is extremely common and one of the biggest symptoms
- You feel you need to escape from your work or your life, and just kind of run away from it.
When you stay true to your personal resilience rituals, you set yourself up to win no matter what life throws at you. And we know life will always throw stuff at you.
Your Personal Resilience Rituals
The challenge in this chapter is to figure out what the heck your resilience rituals are: what are those things that make you strong, resilient, and actually feeling great?
In the book you’ll see my Resilience Rituals Grid.
You have to think about your body:
- What is it you need to do for your body to be strong and energized, and an asset for you? What's the frequency you need to do it?
- When in the week, when in the day, does that need to happen for you?
And your mind:
- What are the things that are going to help you to be clearer and maintain focus on the most important things?
It seems to be that as people get past their 30s, the mind starts to weaken, if you're not managing it in some way. It could be exercise that helps you, meditation, or writing. You may have your own routines. Whatever it is, what are the things you need to do?
And then spirit:
- What are the things that keep you inspired?
- What are the things that make you love life?
I love playing with cars, going to the race track (my son involved in cart racing), doing driving tours. You can have all kinds of opinions on what I do, but it makes me feel wonderful and lights me up inside. It just brings out the best in me.
Key point: figure out your personal resilience rituals and when do you need to use them.
An interesting side note on the spirit. I mentioned cars, which is a big thing for me. In addition, for my family, playing games is huge. As a family game nights light us up and brings the best out of us.
Let’s go back to Chapter 2 (Forget Work-Life Balance). What happens if I use all my best passion at work, or for myself during the week? Then, on the weekend I might not have anything left in the passion tank. And not having the energy to pull out a board game, for example, impacts my family.
So it's really simple. We know that it works as a family, but it takes having the energy and the passion to pull these things off. When we do, things are great. Unfortunately, we just don't do it enough.
Going back to the tools - when you look at the quarterly review and the quarterly reset, the entire center Self column is all about your resilience rituals. When you're evaluating how you did and what worked well, it links back to your resilience rituals. When you plan your goals for the next quarter, most of those goals for Self are around your resilience rituals. This helps make you strong, vibrant, and looking forward.
Figure out what your resilience rituals need to be for it to be a great quarter for you.
Forget Work Life Balance
Video Transcript:
Do you dedicate enough time and energy to everything that matters to you? In your work, yourself, and your life?
A great quote that I absolutely love that reminds me about this thrill and this journey of leadership in high-growth companies. You don't go to the amusement park roller coaster and say, "Hey, I want to be balanced." No. You want to be as unbalanced as possible because that's the thrill of the ride. And that's what leadership is supposed to be: it's supposed to be exciting and challenging.
I talk to a lot of high-performing CEOs, executives, leaders and managers. When things get really, really easy, they often get uneasy - and even get bored. And that's not something you want. We actually want challenges and thrills. Sometimes in the middle of them, we might not be as appreciative, but at the very end - just like on a roller coaster - we're thrilled that we did it.
So you need to really think about it, and work on this particular habit, if either of these are true:
- Your life feels out of control, or
- You feel guilty about not having work life balance
- Life doesn't feel like you thought it would, at this level of success
- You don't enjoy life outside work as much as you thought you would
- You rarely or never take time just for yourself, or if you do, you feel guilty about it.
- You've lost touch with the people and causes, outside of work, you really care about.
The main point in this: you’ve got to not think about this thing called ‘work life balance’ because that's something that applies to traditional people, or people who aren't doing things as big or as challenging, as you are in the world. And you’ve got to start thinking about those three circles of Work, Self, and Life - and what I call passion ratios between Work, Self, and Life, which I'll explain in a second.
Passion Ratios
Here's how passion ratios work: Time spent on something is very different than passion. Passion is when you give your best, you're fully focused, and you're bringing everything you can.
So imagine you have a 100 units of passion to spend in a week. The question is, how well do you allocate them between Work, Self, and Life?
I just came off the road for 10 days. I was in the Middle East, the US, and back to Canada. In that 10-day period, 85% to 90% of my passion units went to work, 10% went to myself (in terms of my workouts and my time for myself to get re-centered and refocused to do a good work with my clients), and about 5% went to my family because I was talking to them twice a day on the phone or on Skype. So in a week when I'm traveling, 85 to 90 to work, 10 to myself, 5 to family, it works. But if I live like that every week, I wouldn't have a family. I'd be kicked out of the house. I'd be irrelevant to my family's life because I'm not giving them any of my best passion.
Here's the challenge, and it's really simple:
- Figure out the passion ratio you're currently at right now.
- Look back over the last month: how much went to Work, Self, and Life?
- Think what would be ideal when you look over the next few months: How do you really truly want to invest that best energy that you have between Work, Self, and Life?
- Take a second now. Write it down.
In the last chapter of the book, Your Oxygen Mask First, are the tools, which are incredibly important: the master plan, which is your long-term integrated plan for your life, and the quarterly review and reset, so you look at how you did, and reset your focus for the next 90 days.
As you can see, passion ratios are part of the quarterly reset when you evaluate the quarter, and it's the top thing - or the first thing - you pick when you set your goals for the next quarter. We all have limited time and energy. It's all about how we allocate these passion units effectively, to make sure that we have a great life and do well in our work.
So there you have it. If you want to know more about forgetting work-life balance, and living your life through the window of passion units and passion ratios, read this chapter in the book. I'm sure you'll find more ideas and insights to help you get better at this.