Episode 43: Cultivating Your Team

Building Trust, Enhancing Communication, and Nurturing Success in Business

Your team is an essential part of your business.

Don't let team dysfunction derail your success. Instead, learn how to build a supportive and engaged team.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.

See you next time!

Are you ready to take massive action in your business and make data-driven decisions? Let’s chat 👇🏽

Podcast Transcript:

Kiva Slade: [00:00:01]

Hello, and welcome to Collab With Kiva. I'm your host Kiva Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing-themed office chair, I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay-at-home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry business owner, and now the owner of a service-based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line or full of zigs and zags, join me and my guest as we share insights, hope, and lessons learned from our female entrepreneurship journeys. May the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat. Let's dive in.

[00:00:55]

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab With Kiva. I am your host, Kiva Slade. Today, I want to talk to you about cultivating your team. Yes, those people who work with you, support you, and just make things happen in your business. And when we're thinking about those people, I think that especially within the online space, we're not as focused because people are independent contractors on the actual cultivating of team culture. And this has been paramount for me lately, as one of the teams I'm with, we are working to have a workshop training on team culture. And I've been surprised by the initial surveys that went out and the things that people have said. And I always listen to the COO Alliance with Cameron Herald and he's a former chief operating officer of Got Junk, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? And he's always talking about the importance of team, the importance of team, of taking care of your people. And I think that becomes even more important when we're in an online space, because so much of our communication is sometimes via email or Slack message or a ClickUp message, and things can get lost or misconstrued rather, in that interpretation, and a comment that may come across as a snide remark, and then you have hurt feelings on the other side. And I'm not sure that we do enough in the online space to actually bring about reconciliation for those things. So, the first thing I want to talk about is communication. Communication. Communication.

[00:03:03]

Honestly, when working remotely, there is just never enough communication. You might think that there is enough. There is not enough communication. There always seems to be more communication that people are desiring within the team, more communication around actually getting to know people. Communication around, "Hey, what are your goals? What else are you trying to do in life? What's going on in your life?" There needs to be obviously communication for business purposes, but also communication for personal purposes. And I'm not all into that your business team is your family because there are mixed feelings about that. However, I do think it's important that so many of those bonds that are formed when you are in close proximity to someone working, often are missing when you're in remote working situations. So, being able to provide opportunities or experiences for those things, those bonds to be developed, is important. Because when that snide comment happens or that remark or something said, that feels a bit off, those bonds that have been formed will let you know, like "You know what? Sally was having a moment. She must not have been in a good headspace, and I'm going to let this go." Which is far different than, "Sally was really short and snide with me earlier today. Yeah, I'm just not even going to respond to her emails for the next two days while I work through this."

[00:05:09]

There is a difference. And you don't want the second one taking place within your team. So, creating opportunities and experiences for people to get to know each other, creating opportunities and experiences for people to have connections. Connection is super important. And that connection comes through that communication. So, if you think that you are providing enough opportunities, enough spaces, enough venues for communication because hey, we have slack, we have email, we use looms, it's not enough. So, again, over-communication is so much better than under-communication. And looking to bring that into your remote work environment will do wonders for you and your team. And so, the second one is really understanding that your team is your most important asset. I think for a lot of us, we think that our products that we offer, our services, our fill-in-the-blank is the most important asset. It's your team. It's your team. You've grown your business to a point where you can't do everything on your own. And if you try to, you're going to massively fail. You're going to not deliver to people what you've promised them. Because you can't do it. You need your team in order to make these things happen. You need your team in order to serve your clients well. You need your team in order to run your business well.

[00:07:10]

And knowing that means that you need to. Acknowledge that in how you treat your team. Whether it's corporate America that has seen this great resignation, great reshuffle. Call it what you like. People will leave you. If they're not feeling valued, they're feeling respected, they will leave you. And rightfully so. Because in some instances you aren't treating them like they are your most important asset. And so, it's important in the whole dynamics of team that you do these things, that you treat people the way that shows that they are your most important asset, and that you value them, that you value them, that you value what they bring to the table. You value what they add to your business. You value how they help your business move forward. That these are all things that you readily acknowledge, and you back that up with how you actually interact with them. Recently, one of the teams I've worked with, I've had team members come to me, they're like, "So I have a question, Kiva, about this idea." And the CEO has been a bit busy with some other things and just not very responsive to questions. And then sometimes the responsiveness is causing additional work to be done or causing work to be reworked because things needed to be moved forward and move forward without some other information because of lack of responsiveness.

[00:09:20]

And people get frustrated with that. They get super frustrated because it's like if you would have just responded in the first place, then I wouldn't have to redo this work. And if we're honest, it's frustrating for them because of the time and effort that was put out, but it should also be frustrating for the business owner because you're basically paying for work more than once. So, understanding what that looks like and what that feels like as the owner putting yourself in their shoes to be like, "You know what? This actually isn't a really good thing. I need to do better with being responsive." There's this phenomenon, I think, taking place where we're like, "Oh, I'm just in business and my team is going to run everything." It's not your team's business. It's your business. So, they're going to need input from you. They're going to need feedback from you. And if you don't want to do those things, don't be in business. I said what I said. So, you need to take care of them. When you take care of your team, your team takes care of you. Don't believe me? Don't take care of your team and see what happens. There's just so much there that needs to be done better as it relates to cultivating a good team culture.

[00:10:58]

And it's becoming, I think, even more important as our cultures continue to ... Things are changing, they're evolving. They are moving forward in ways that people are really picky and choosy about who they work for and why they work for them. They want to be aligned with you and your values, your mission, your vision. They want to make sure that they're having an impact. And if you're not taking care of your team and they don't know that they're having an impact, or you're more focused on some other aspects or something else, that you're just kind of ignoring parts of your business, you can't expect your team to fill in that gap. That's not their job in so many instances. It's yours as the CEO to provide that vision. So, when you look at team, you can actually start to figure out where your dysfunctions are. And obviously, there are also like I shared, people out there who will help run a very good team culture training for you. But there's also a book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lincoln, which is a really great read. It's a quick read, but I highly recommend it. And he talks about five dysfunctions. One is an absence of trust. And that's the fear of being vulnerable. Prevents team members from building trust with each other. The second is a fear of conflict. The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles productive ideological conflict within the team. Honestly, there are meetings that really should have conflict and they don't because people are afraid of conflict. Conflict is bad. Every idea isn't a good idea, so if there's no one on the team who feels that they can actually say, Hey, let me poke holes in this and ask some questions without folks getting totally bent out of shape about it, then that's a dysfunction. Because every idea is not a good idea. Every idea should not be ran with.

[00:13:20]

And I see this a lot with my role as a fractional CEO. I have to sometimes be that person who creates some conflict. Because if the team just does everything the visionary says to do, nothing gets done or nothing gets done very well. So, it's really important that there's like that dysfunction in terms of a fear of conflict. That needs to be worked on. And even for myself, I have a team. I cannot be afraid when my team says, "That idea? How about this, this, and this?" Or "Have you thought about this, this, and this?" I have to actually say "No, actually, I didn't think about those things. Oh, wow! That's not going to happen that way, is it? Hmm. All right, back to the drawing board. Let's see how we can reconfigure this." But if that doesn't happen, are you really achieving the goals that you set out to achieve if everyone on your team just agrees with everything that's taking place and no one says, Wow, this is bad? Like the Office, Michael drives into a pond following the GPS blindly. You see the water, you don't stop. You wind up in the pond. Dysfunction three, lack of commitment. The lack of clarity and or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they stick to. I feel like I should let that one marinate. Your team can also get frustrated, though, if you make you make a lot of decisions and nothing actually gets followed through on.

[00:15:08]

"Hey, team, we're going to go do this." Everyone stops what they're doing to go do this. And then this thing gets to about 60% and it's like, "Oh, I don't want to do that anymore. Let's go do this. Team switches and does this. That gets to about 60, 70% completed. And then there's another "Nope, not going to do that. Let's go do this." Then at this point, your team is like "You go ahead and do it yourself because we don't know where this is really going." Dysfunction. Number four is an avoidance of accountability. The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding each other accountable for their behaviors and performance. And that's a big one because when there is no accountability, high performers become discouraged, deadlines are missed, team members actually feel overwhelmed, and they're wondering what are the repercussions for other people's behaviors. You're not going to continue to be this star student when the rest of them are slackers. It's like that group project and you're like, "Oh crap, I don't want to do a group project because I'm the only one who's going to do the work, but everyone's going to get the grade." And so, it encourages people in some cases to remain mediocre. Who wants mediocre? So, definitely, it's a dysfunction that you don't want to have. Or number five, which is the inattention to results. hat pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the team's focus on collective success.

[00:17:00]

You've all been on a team where that's been the case, I'm sure. Because the achievement-oriented team members are then going to become disengaged. Collective goals people are like, Yeah, whatever. You're going to wind up in many cases losing market competition because you have solo stars, you don't have an ensemble cast. Having clear metrics to assess how the team is doing, how the team is able to hold each other accountable, it pushes people towards pursuing common goals and not those individual goals. So, it's really important. And like I said, definitely check out The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I've done training on this previously. It's eye-opening to look at these dysfunctions in more detail. But they're important that they're not necessarily blind spots for you. Because the importance is that you want to be aware of these things when it comes to cultivating your team so that you can cultivate a team that's not ... I'm not going to say it's going to be without any dysfunctions, we're people, but it's important that there's that acknowledgment that, Hey, we're not perfect. There are probably going to be some dysfunctions, but being able to deal with dysfunctions instead of just ostrich, head in the sand, not focus on the functions ... dealing with them is far more beneficial than not dealing with them. So, as you look to cultivate your team, make sure you practice good communication. Overcommunicate, overcommunicate, overcommunicate. Realize they are your most important asset. It is not what you're selling. It really isn't. It's your team. And if you take care of them, they will in turn take care of you and your clients. And that is a glorious thing. So, tune in next time and we'll talk about another topic related to running a business. Anyhow, I'm so excited that you guys are here. I will check in with you next time. Bye.

[00:19:40]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Collab With Kiva. Each of us has a different path and I hope that this episode gave you some takeaway that has left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you're a small business owner, ready to start making data-driven decisions in your business, and you know that without the data, you're really just guessing, make sure to visit my website, the516collaborative.com, and let's schedule a time to talk to make sure that you can harness the power of data in your business. I'll see you next time. Bye.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.