Tag: teamwork

The five traits of high-performing teams

Posted on by Nathan Schock in culture

Humans are adaptable.  

We’ve survived all manner of calamity to get where we are today. So it should be no surprise then that we’ve found ways to make work “work” in a post-pandemic age. 

That’s what I took from recent research into the common characteristics of high-performing teams in the workplace. An article on the research was published in the Harvard Business Review.

The authors found five areas of commonality. High-performing teams: 

  • Are not afraid to pick up the phone. 
  • Are more strategic with their meetings. 
  • Invest time bonding over non-work topics. 
  • Give and receive appreciation more frequently. 
  • Are more authentic at work. 

Some of this affirms what you might expect as a business leader. Essentially, good people get along with other good people and so they are more productive. And the authors acknowledge that. 

“When it comes to building extraordinary workplaces and high-performing teams, researchers have long appreciated that three psychological needs are essential: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. … Of those three essential needs, relatedness, or the desire to feel connected to others, has always been the trickiest for organizations to cultivate.” 

The question is, how do you find and hire people who fit with the culture of your company – who can relate – so that they are part of the high-performing team that you want to build. 

Good question. 

I practice and teach a four-step hiring system that, while rigorous, produces team members who are more likely to be a long-term fit. The hiring process is so rigorous because nothing impacts culture more than hiring – more than who you decide to put on the bus.

One of those four steps is an interview to assess their cultural fit by getting at those five traits listed above and other traits important to the specific culture a company is trying to foster.

If you want to learn more about my hiring system, just reach out.

What I read in May

Posted on by Nathan Schock in Uncategorized

My reading slowed a bit in May as I hired a business coach to help me with some changes in the business. It’s something I hope to write more about at a future time, but it required a lot of my time and attention, so reading decreased a bit. But learning did not. I was learning by reading a lot of their resources, working through video-based training and interacting with my coach on weekly calls.

Still, there was time for reading. Here are the highlights of what I finished in May, 2020:

Who – The A Method for Hiring

Most business leaders and entrepreneurs have run across the famous concept popularized by Jim Collins in his seminal book, Good to Great: “First who, then what.” The idea is that those who build great organizations focus first on getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats before they figure out where they’re driving the bus. But most don’t know how to do this. They follow what Geoff Smart calls some method “of voodoo hiring” like scanning a resume, conducting a short interview, calling a couple of references and going with a gut instinct. Smart instead gives a system for hiring that involves a scorecard rather than job description and a series of interviews designed to determine if the candidate is a fit for the mission, has the competencies to do the job and can achieve the agreed upon objectives. The ultimate goal is to hire A Players – to get the who decisions right. I’ve started implementing some of these concepts in my business and, if you don’t have a hiring system, you should, too.

VC – An American History

One of my businesses is owned by a private equity company, which is not exactly the same as venture capital, but in the same vein. So I was interested in this history of venture capital in America. It started long before California became a state and has been tied to the entrepreneurial story of America since its founding. Wherever there has been the promise of out-sized returns at great risk, financial intermediaries (venture capitalists) have arisen to mitigate that risk. It started with whaling industry and was made famous by the Silicon Valley firms that invested in the tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc. etc. In between those two points in history is a fascinating story where the industry was kept alive first by wealthy families, military investment and universities. I was especially interested in his take on where the industry goes in the future. Nicholas mentions the innovative approach of Andreessen Horowitz to offer its portfolio companies a slate of services (HR, marketing, etc.) in addition to investment. Nicholas sees that as a sign of the industry returning to a long-term focus of building companies for public markets rather than short-term returns. Time will tell if that approach wins out, but what’s not debatable is that venture capital will continue to be part of America’s story.

Free Prize Inside!

The only way to win in business is to become remarkable. That was the message of Purple Cow. But how do you make a purple cow? That’s what this short book is about. In fact, that’s what the subtitle says. According to Seth Godin, he had to write this follow-up because business was all wrong in how they were going about their search for a purple cow. They were seeking the big. Big innovations. Big marketing campaigns. But a Purple Cow is much more likely to be a small, soft innovation that customers love – a Free Prize inside their offering. Writes Godin, “Most free prizes have two essential elements in common. First, they are the thing about your service, your product or your organization that’s worth remarking on. Something worth seeking out and buying…Second, most free prizes are not about what the person needs. Instead, they satisfy our wants. They are fashionable or fun or surprising or delightful or sad. They rarely deliver more of what we were buying in the first place.”

One of the most obvious free prizes is customer experience. It’s not more of the product or service. It’s something unexpected during the delivery of the product or service. Something that’s worth remarking on. And late in the book, Godin gives a fitting example. He tells the story of his interaction with Jose who worked in a taco shop in the Denver airport. What was remarkable about this interaction? Jose chatted with Godin for an extra minute while he ordered, got him a special condiment from the back. Later, he asked Godin how his meal was. In other words, Godin had a great experience with Jose. And as he points out, the cost of that experience was zero, but the value to Godin was “enormous.” Your customer experience can be a free prize for your guests. It can cost you nothing while delivering enormous value.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Great teamwork is the exception and that exception almost always means that a team has overcome five specific things that cause all teams to misfire. Patrick Lencioni has identified those five dysfunctions in this fantastic little book. I’m a huge fan of Lencioni. The first two-thirds of almost all of his books are a fictional account that makes his point followed by a non-fictional explanation of that point. I’d read the non-fictional third of this book many times, but never the fable that comes before it. I think both are his best work. Here’s a quick listing of the five dysfunctions (as I plan to write more about this book later):

  1. Absence of Trust: The fear of vulnerability prevents the building of trust within the team.
  2. Fear of Conflict: The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive conflict.
  3. Lack of Commitment: The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents making decisions the team will stick to.
  4. Avoidance of Accountability: The need to avoid discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.
  5. Inattention to Results: The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

I recently listened to Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which Lencioni calls the field guide for implementing this book. I can’t recommend both highly enough to anyone managing a team.

More

I read The Vision-Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt, which would be a great book for someone looking to establish an organizational vision for the first time. Also read Visioneering by Andy Stanley, which I blogged about here.

What should I read next? Leave a comment below if you have a recommendation.

What I read in April

Posted on by Nathan Schock in books

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones once said, five years from now, you will be the same person you are today except for two things: “the people you meet and the books you read.” Well, thanks to COVID-19, I didn’t meet too many new people last month. But, also thanks to COVID-19, I had a lot of extra time to read.

And, as promised, I’m sharing the best of what I read last month.

The Invisible Leader

According to author Zach Mercurio, most organizations are not tapping into their most powerful leader. That leader isn’t in the C-suite – in fact, it’s not a person at all. That leader is a compelling, authentic purpose for the organization – an Invisible Leader. The reason that this most powerful leader is untapped is that organizations are primarily focused on results: grades for students, quotas or other KPIs in business, etc. At best, these provide short-term motivational pushes – cramming to get a grade on a test, a flurry of activity at the end of the month to achieve a sales quota – but they don’t last. It’s authentic purpose, which Mercurio defines as “a person or organization’s genuine and unique reason for existence that is useful to others in society,” that acts as the ultimate differentiator and motivator.

Marketing Rebellion

We are in the midst of a third marketing rebellion, where consumers are rebelling (for perhaps the final time) against advertising. The first rebellion – in the early twentieth century – brought an end to the lies of the advertising that sold snake-oil and other dubious products. The second came with the internet, bringing an end to the secrets that advertisers had depended on (think MTV VJ turned podcaster Adam Curry saying, “There are no secrets, only information you don’t yet have”). The third marketing rebellion that we’re in the midst of is bringing an end to control. In this new era, two-thirds of a consumer’s purchasing decision involves “human-driven marketing activities like internet reviews, social media conversations, and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, family, and online experts.” Author Mark Schaefer points out: two-thirds of your marketing is not your marketing. Then, he asks: So, what do you do? You forge human connections with your customers. Thus the tagline of his book: “the most human company wins.” At FiveFour, we say that your marketing is your customer experience, and most of Schaefer’s examples of human-centered marketing are what we would call customer experience. Consumers can see through lies, there are no secrets and businesses are no longer in control of their marketing. They want a human connection with the companies that want their business. Consumers are demanding remarkable customer experiences. And, as previous rebellions have shown, in the end, the consumer always wins.

Living Life Backward

I can’t remember the first personal development session I sat in that had me write my obituary, but I know I’ve done it several times. The intent of the exercise is to get you – as Stephen Covey has coined it – begin with the end in mind. According to David Gibson, the preacher who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes did that same thing over 2,000 years ago. Life is short – a mere breath. The world is confusing. We have far less control over our circumstances than we would like. The only certainty is our eventual death and the likelihood that none of our accomplishments will survive us. By confronting us with these realities, the Old Testament book asks how we should live in light of them, right now. The answer it provides is to stop trying to escape the limitations of life. Stop treating your life as a problem to be solved. Stop worshiping and depending on stuff. Be content with your circumstances. Be grateful for the rhythms of life, for they are a gift from God. “Gift, not gain, is your new motto.” Be generous with your time and possessions. Pay attention to the world around you rather than the distractions of life. “Eat, drink, and be merry, not because that’s all there is, but because that’s what there is.” What can help us do this? The reality of death. “Preparing to die means thinking about how to live.”

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni has long been one of my favorite business authors and perhaps the best there is on organizational health. His style of writing easily-accessible business fables that teach timeless truths has led to millions of book sales. By far the most famous of those fables is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable and those dysfunctions are worth listing: The first is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. A failure to build trust sets the tone for the second dysfunction, which is a fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. That ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, leading an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, people often hesitate to hold their peers accountable, which creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive: inattention to results. If none of those dysfunctions sound familiar, you’re either not on a team or you are in a state of blissful ignorance. Every team suffers from at least one of these dysfunctions and could benefit from reading both books. While the fable clearly lays out the impact of these dysfunctions, it’s this Field Guide that shows you how to overcome them. And isn’t that the whole point?

the path between us

There is no shortage of personality and behavioral tests: Myers-Briggs, DISC, Motivators, the Five-Factor Model and an endless number of lesser-known models. In The Path Between Us, Suzanne Stabile introduces the Enneagram, an ancient personality typing system that leads to self-discovery. From the Greek words ennéa, meaning “nine” and grámma, meaning something “written” or “drawn” the nine-pointed Enneagram is a typology of nine interconnected personality types, each with distinct strategies for relating to the self, others and the world. It has become commonly used in the Christian community as an aid to spiritual formation. I first heard about it on the podcast of Donald Miller, read The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery and took the Enneagram test. It was fairly easy to identify myself and it taught me some important lessons about how I engaged with the world. Almost simultaneously, my wife was engaging the Enneagram in a study with her friends, so we decided to listen to The Path Between Us during a weekend getaway and it gave us valuable ways to better interact with each other. In my work, I lead teams through the DISC and the most valuable learning is always through their interactions with each other. The Enneagram is the same. It’s one thing to discover my type and learn more about myself. But the real insight comes from how I interact with others. That’s the insight that comes from The Path Between Us.

What You Do is Who You Are

Ben Horowitz is at pains in this book to explode the myth that you can establish culture simply by writing it down. That’s an important first step. You have to first define what you want. But it’s not enough. It’s not even enough to model the culture you want, even though that’s incredibly important. You must make sure that the values you want in your business are actionable, be crystal clear what those actions are, and constantly reinforce them. Horowitz goes back in history to draw lessons from obscure cultures like Haitian slaves, prison gangs and the samurai to show his main point: “Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are.” A good read for those who need to define the culture of their organizations.

Jack’s Life: The Story of C.S. Lewis

This biography of C.S. Lewis was written by his stepson, Douglas Gresham. The book both benefits and suffers from that fact. The benefit was in the first-person account. The drawback was his tendency to cast Lewis in the best possible light, no matter what the circumstance. For example, the falling out between Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien doesn’t even register. Ultimately, the book would have been improved had it included more first-person narrative and less defense of Lewis. However, given the relationship between the two and the fact that Gresham is no author, it’s understandable and the book is worth reading by fans of Lewis.

More

I also read Nine Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham. Many of the lies recast familiar learnings from his earlier books, but my favorite of the lies was #3: the best companies cascade goals. Not true, says Buckingham. The best companies cascade meaning. Crushing It! By Gary Vaynerchuck was a good reminder that, no matter how good you or your idea, success requires total commitment. Due to its role in bringing about the fall of the Soviet Union, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was a compelling read. And I blogged about Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi here and here. Finally, I read Lancelot by Walker Percy, which had some profound points while being profoundly weird.

What are you reading? What should I read this month?

The Purpose, Partners and Plans of Paul

Posted on by Nathan Schock in leadership

We’re in Holy Week and today is Maundy Thursday, so I thought it appropriate to post about a sermon my friend Jason Folkerts preached at our church a little over a month ago.

Jason preached on Acts 18:1-4. To me, the four verses seemed like an unimportant introduction to the rest of the chapter, but in Jason’s hands, they uncovered the most important thing about Paul’s mission to take the good news of the Gospel beyond his nation.

Purpose

“After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth (18:1).” Athens was the intellectual center of the world. A place where the scholar and theologian Paul would have felt right at home.

What would cause him to leave Athens for a port town like Corinth? His was following his purpose that we learned about in Acts 9:15. Pursuing his calling necessitated that Paul leave the familiar and comfortable for something new and uncertain.

Partners

“There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. (18:2-3).” Paul didn’t go to Corinth and try to do it all on his own. He got partners from the city and worked with them.

As Jason pointed out, when God is up to something really good, it’s rarely around one person. Even someone as influential as the Apostle Paul had partners that he worked with throughout his ministry.

Plan

“Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks (18:4).” Lastly, Paul had a plan for accomplishing his mission. Every sabbath he went to the place where practitioners and seekers of religion gathered for debate.

I like the word “every” at the start of verse four. To me, it shows commitment to the plan. I think of Paul on the days he didn’t feel like going to the synagogue, but doing it anyway out of commitment to his plan. His plan wasn’t just a dream. He built a routine.

So, the Apostle Paul had a purpose that was bigger than himself, he joined with other people to complete the important work, and he followed a plan.

How did that turn out? Maundy Thursday is a celebration of the Last Supper, when most of the Christians fit around one table. Today, Christianity has almost 2.5 billion followers. That would require a little bit bigger table.