Ep 2: Building Teams
Understanding teams and embracing differences become critical team building skills in any business.
Rael Bricker 0:01
Hi, I'm Rael Bricker, and I will be one of your hosts with the Business Excellence podcast. And I'm Lindsay Adams, I'm the co-host. And together, we're going to be talking about what makes up Business Excellence. And we believe that you can never be perfect, all you can be is excellent. And in our businesses and in our lives, we want to achieve excellence. And that's why this is the Business Excellence podcast.
Rael Bricker 0:30
Welcome back to the Business Excellence podcast. In today's episode, we're going to be looking at teams and relationships. And my co-host is the Relationships Guy, Lindsay, you've worked with teams for many, many years, and helped organizations build better teams and build better relationships? What's the secret to building teams and relationships?
Lindsay Adams 0:55
Thanks. Well, it's, you know, it's an interesting one, I reckon, for a team to work really well, that they need to have shared vision and common goals, you need to have the right person in the right job, and you need to have you know, good business relationships.
Rael Bricker
Can you expand on each one of those?
Lindsay Adams
Okay, you know, point number one shared vision and common goals. If we're not all heading in the right direction, or the same direction, then the team's never going to work.
Either the leader or the team needs to agree, what are we here for and how we're going to go about this and think about it, as getting on a bus and if you're all on the bus, you're all heading in the same direction. So, if the team are heading towards to share the same goal, the same vision, then they're going to work more effectively together.
Rael Bricker
It's interesting if you use the bus analogy, many, many years ago, when I played sports at state level, we were on a bus, on a very, very old bus on tour and we're heading up a hill into the mountains in South Africa and the bus was really struggling and so all of us who are hockey players, grabbed our hockey sticks and stuck them out the window and made as if we were rowing to give the bus a hand going up the hill and it was great for team building. Because we all remember that incident.
Of course, it was about interesting, about then, we were all 20-year-olds, it was about that combined effort of being able to do something to help the bus up the hill. So, to help the team up the hill. Yeah. How do you find the right people? How do you put the right team?
Lindsay Adams
You know, the second point I said was going to have the right person the right job. And, you know, if you think about it, if you want to go the sporting analogy, the hockey team, you know, if you, and now I'm going to show my ignorance, I don't really know that much about hockey, but I'm guessing that there's someone on the team who's going to shoot for the goal. So, it's about having the right person who's going to hit that ball and just the right moment, or someone who's going to pass the ball to the person who's going to hit the ball into the goal.
And so, you know, when you're working in a team, it's about having defined roles, and understanding what's my responsibility? And then how does that contribute to the overall outcome of the team. And I've seen it time and again, if you know, you get the wrong person in a job, and they don't fit, they don't get on with other people. and it just doesn't work. Well, it's interesting if you follow Tour de France that has been on and you know, every July and 2020 was an interesting new different.
Every team has something called domestiques in the team. Now we're talking of a team of eight top world quality riders, but yet each team has four to six domestiques in the team and the role of the Domestique is to protect the team leader at all costs. They are there to ride into the wind for hours, straining their legs so that the team leader who has a potential chance of winning something, rides behind them protected and that's very much the role of the team and they recruit people for those teams to quite specific roles. How do you recruit to roles in a business?
Lindsay Adams 4:24
Well, I mean that you couldn't have nailed a better example because I mean that clear vision shared goal shared vision shared goal win the race. The right person, the right job, the Domestique rides in front of the key rider to break the wind to save their energy so that at the right moment, the lead rider can go out and cross the finish line and win the race for the team and then how do you find the right people? Well, it's it really is about relationship. And, you know, one of the one of the tools that I use is a thing called the DISC model.
The DISC model is a four-quadrant model invented a long, long time ago started out in the 20s and it has its origins, a guy called William Moulton Marston wrote a paper and then the models been sort of perfected and shaped and reshaped and shaped and reshaped in years since, but it's a really good simple tool because what it does, it shows us that there are four different behavioural types in the workplace and a fully functioning team recognizes that we're all different and that we are able to work with the different kinds of people we work with.
Now, let me let me just give you a quick rundown of the four types so we get a bit of a picture pen picture here, and then we can just talk you know about how that's going to work in real life. The D the dominant typically, you know, very goal driven like to get things done make decisions, they decide and do get on with it don't muck about they love to make things happen. The I, the influencer you know, great people person knows lots of people has great many contacts. Big Picture thinker loves the world of ideas, not always good at finishing stuff, so good at starting not so good at finishing. The S the steady, the great, they’re the ultimate team, player salt of the earth, they arrive early, they leave late, they're there to support the team through thick and thin they get things done in a quiet unassuming way and finally, the C the conscientious, they're the detail people. So, structure rigor, logic, you know, they make lists, and they tick them off one by one, you know, the old carpentry analogy, measure twice, cut once. So, you get a bit of a sense of the four types. Now, if we can harness the energy of those four types in a team, and get them all moving in the same direction, imagine the power. So, a D, you know, a lot of a lot of managers leaders are D’s in organizations now, sweeping generalization a lot, but not all. Okay, so imagine a D manager leader going come on team, I know where we're going follow me.
Then the I, the people person goes, come on everybody, we're going to have fun while we do this, come on, it's going to be great. Let's get going, motivates everyone, the S, is there going, alright, yes, I think we've got all the supplies we need. Everyone's got a cup of coffee, everyone's got a writing stick, piece of paper, whatever they need and then we have the C who comes along and says, yep, we've, I've checked the list, I've checked it twice, we've got everything we need and so, you can imagine in a well-oiled team, you'd have one of each kind, and they would work so well together.
Rael Bricker
The question is, how defined are those roles in terms of are people, is that your personality Is that your behaviour? Because there's a lot of confusion around about the difference between a behavioural style and a personality profile? Yeah, I'm gonna be splitting some hairs here. So, you know, disk is technically not a personality profile, that, you know, if you said that word in front of a psychologist, they're gonna carve you up and say, it's not it's all about behaviours.
It's really, it's about your behaviour in the workplace and the beauty of DISC is, it's such a simple model, that you can simply observe other people's behaviour, listen to how fast or slow they speak, how many questions they ask, how introverted or extroverted they are, and you get a bit of a picture of where they fit and then if you adjust your behaviour a little to be like them, you're going to have a better relationship, a stronger relationship, and you'll be able to work together easier and so, you know, as I said, in an ideal world, you've had one of each in a team, but that's never reality.
Rael Bricker
I mean, can you adapt, I mean, can people change where they sit, can people, are people in a way that they have a particular style at home dealing with the kids dealing with their best friends over a barbecue? And then a complete shift or reversal in the workplace with a with a display completely different style? Good question.
So, it's interesting, we have what's called a natural style and that's kind of you at rest at home, you know, with it without stress and then we have an adapted style, and you adapt to your workplace. So, when you go to work, there are sometimes different expectations put on us and then there are at home, so people actually change their behaviour slightly, or sometimes dramatically when they go to work. Now, if it's a slight change, it's okay. They can do that. If it's a dramatic change. They can do it, but they can't do it over and over and over and over.
Now. Me personally I'm not a big detail person, but I can do detail when I have to. So many years ago, I bought a franchise business, there was a 34-page contract, I read that contract seven times in detail. Could I do that day in day out forever and ever? No way and so yes, we can change, but we tend to when we get under stress, we go back to what we know and love the base, our natural profile.
So, you know, yes, you can adapt and in fact, the key to this whole behavioural thing is actually being adapting a little to be more like the person you're working with. So, Rael, you and I are different. In the model, you're more of a D, and I'm more of an I. I know you, you have a DI combination, I have an IS combination. So, when I'm working with you, I know that you like to make things happen want to get it done and you know, I've seen time and time again, in your in your mortgage business, how you, you know, you've been very successful making things happen.
So, if I'm working with you, I'm going to be more focused and more outcome oriented, but I noticed when you are working with me, of course, your I comes out and you're more, you know, more friendly, more open more, you know, people oriented, or I've seen it in fact, with your team, you know, the Friday lunches that you guys have, in fact, just talk about that for a minute, the Friday lunch thing, I love that whole concept that you do in your office.
Rael Bricker
Thanks Lindsay, a few years ago we decided at kind of some random point that it would be a good idea because our lives are so hectic, and we tend to not spend time around the proverbial coffee machine or the water cooler that we would have a formal informal arrangement, where on a Friday one of the team would order lunch from somewhere on my credit card, of course, which were made popular, of course.
It's become a tradition that every single Friday, whoever's in the office at about 11, o'clock in the morning, there's an email that goes round that says, today we're going to have pizzas or chicken or burgers, whatever, Here’s the menu, please send us your orders by 11:30, one of the team orders, now with the advent of ride sharing services that do food delivery it's made it a whole lot easier.
You know, it still goes on my credit card and it's a tradition, and everybody sits down and does that, so we tried in the business years ago to actually have Friday afternoon drinks, but with the fact of you have responsibility, and you don't want people drinking at work that much and having a car accident or anything like that. We also decided that from a team perspective just sitting around on Friday, having lunch together, and not talking about work.
I think that's the key is, it's not imposed you know, if somebody's got a problem with a client, they're going to talk about it, but it's actually just about what do you do on the weekend, what's happening in your life, what’s your wife, kids, mother-in-law up to and it’s a great environment.
Lindsay Adams
You know when you think of it, kind of sums it up, shared vision, common goals, right person in the right job, build good relationships and have good relationships in the team, it's a simple formula an understanding that we have, that we work with people who are slightly different to us than making allowances for that and I think that creates a great environment for healthy relationships and a fully functioning team.
Rael Bricker
Thank you, Lindsay and that was this week’s podcast on the Business Excellence podcast, learning about how to build teams, how to build relationships , there will be much more in further episodes, so join us for the next episode of the Business Excellence podcast.
