S2 E67: The Bridge to Teamwork

For some the college experience is filled with parties and fun while for others it’s a grind of school work and studying. For me, it was an exciting opportunity to pave the way as the only male in an all-female freshman dorm! 

As the Head Resident the position wasn’t as much fun-and-games as it was leading, inspiring, and guiding. And a big part of that was building and leading a team of 6 female RAs who eagerly embraced their mission to make freshman year unforgettable and rewarding for all the incoming freshman girls in our dorm.   

Those leadership lessons I learned on the College of William and Mary campus have stayed with me as I’ve worked within the teams others built and went on to build businesses and teams myself.

In this episode of the podcast, you’ll hear:

• The EXACT leadership lesson I’ve had to relearn over and over again and I’m sharing it with you so you learn from my experience
• 2 questions that are 100% your responsibility
• One question you should NEVER spend another moment on 
• Why most leaders can’t attract and keep A+ team players and how you can 

And so much more!

Leaders Simplify Teamwork and focusing on the right questions helps you grow For Love of Team™. 

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Connect with Winston

LinkedIn     https://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonfaircloth/
Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/forloveofteam
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Twitter        https://twitter.com/forloveofteam

#TeamLOVE Book. Join the bold book writing journey as we write and share our first draft chapters from our upcoming book - Team Love: 28 Ways to Demonstrate Caring at Work here in season 3 of the For Love of Team podcast.

Be notified each week about a new episode and follow our journey at TeamLoveBook.com

Transcript

Winston Faircloth: 0:00

Why fuels purpose, provides context and shows the path to a larger benefit of taking your work on either multipliers it's Winston Faircloth, and welcome back to Episode 67. of for love of team. This is the podcast where leaders simplify teamwork, helping you surround yourself with others doing the work they love, and simplify business processes so that you can serve more focused on the work you love. Well, last time we talked about the second pillar of our promise, leaders simplify teamwork with a focus on four foundational steps to help simplify your business back on episode 66, and to recap the four steps to begin your journey of simplifying your business. Step one, take inventory for business activities. Step two, evaluate your time investments. Step three, document futures, simplifications. And step four, filter activities to delegate automate and eliminate and today as we explore the third pillar of love of team teamwork, we hope you'll begin to understand why well first let's start with a flashback. 2021 marks the 40th anniversary me leading a paid team of six people that I've recruited, I interviewed a hired and I lead. And you've heard it said that you never forget your first in life. And this was a very unique circumstance that had many firsts. As an undergraduate, I went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. I wasn't on a scholarship, as it always been the plan in our family for the way of attending college. But I was fortunate enough to cobble together a number of well paying jobs in sales at Coca Cola during the summers. And in the residence hall program for three of the four years I was on campus during the academic year. And as a sophomore, I served as a resident assistant or ra in the off campus complex. And then as a junior, I was promoted to head resident in that same dorm complex. These two experiences both being a resident assistant and a head resident in my sophomore and junior years open opened the door to my senior year that I never quite expected. And for the first time in the history of our university residence hall life Dean jack Morgan hired a female head resident for the largest freshman men's dorm and a male for the most prominent located freshmen women's dorm. And guess who was the man who assumed leadership of Barrett Hall and a group of six women are as that's me. Tough duty, right? Actually, it was really groundbreaking in 1981 co Ed dorms were not an option for freshmen back then. And my first and most important responsibility was assembling a team of six women who collectively make our freshman year unforgettable and rewarding for the 180 plus women coming to campus for the first time that phone the dean and his team provided amazing leadership leadership models, leadership practices that helped us select train, equip, support a team that was ultimately the face of the university to parents and students like under our care. Now in the dorms, we were responsible for the safety after hours access in the dorms. But we were also responsible for developing programming and a sense of community for women who are leaving home for full time for likely the first time in their lives. And having me in the dorm provided an instant Big Brother presence and six foot seven inches tall, I was likely as imposing as any football player who might be showing up in an inopportune time to try to gain access to the dorm. And what I most remember about that time of building this team was the diverse skills, backgrounds, personalities and perspectives that each team member brought to this responsibility. And now 40 years later, I can still picture each person even now and recall what I most appreciated about how they delivered for our residents. Chris she had a calming presence. Betsy, she was the life of the party. She was the bubbly full of life person with perspective. And Laura. She brought a heritage not often seen on our campus back then, as a young African American woman. Each her gift Did in unique ways, all sharing a common purpose. three short years later, I would again be tasked with leading the team. This time a team of over a dozen Fundraising Professionals and support positions within a $10 million organization. Here I was promoted above several team members with way better connections and deeper experience than I had. I think what made me stand out was this first campus experience of leading a non traditional team. That was not my first rodeo of leading teams. And that put me on a better footing than some of the other options internally available. So what I learned in those roles, those early roles of leadership of teams early in my career, what did I learn in those roles that can help you as the founder and leader today of your enterprise? Well, it's a lesson I've had to relearn over and over again, because it runs so counter to what most leadership programs teach. Now, we all know that role clarity on a team is critical. And yes, that's taught, it's practiced. It's emphasized over and over. But what I'm about to share is rarely mentioned, as a founder and leader of your future team, there are two primary words or questions that you alone are responsible for leading your team through, and there's one that you should never spend another moment on, ever again, that's the provocative part of this discussion. So leaders, you ultimately own the answer to the question, What, what's our mission? What do we bring in service to others? What do we do next? What delivers the most value to our clients? What team members? Do we need to multiply our impact as a business? And yes, your collaborative leader, so you're likely to receive inputs, suggestions, comments, as much as you can gain through your collaboration with others. But ultimately, there's one decision maker on the word, what hand, if you can stay here, you will do your product clients and team members a tremendous service, owning the what? Now, when you think about the team members that you want to bring into your organization, or maybe you already have in your organization, they own a different word. They own the answer to the question, how now I can already tell several, there may be people listening to this, they're getting their hackles up on this because, yeah, I need to tell them how to write. Well. Let's talk about I'm offering this up in the context of attracting and and nurturing and growing and cultivating and keeping a plus team members. So team members that fit that criteria. Own the question how now I decisive well considered what deserves a how that's managed by gifted capable who, which has the skills, abilities, desires to deliver the results, the what that you seek. This is an incredibly difficult concept, and practice for most leaders to grasp. Yet it is key to attracting, growing and retaining a plus team members. Because staying out of the how unleashes their creativity and purpose. This creativity and purpose are what great performers demand in their work life. I see a plus players are self aware. They understand their gifts, and are seeking opportunities, not just any opportunity, they're seeking the best opportunities to bring those gifts to leaders who appreciate and value those gifts. Today's eight players focus on purpose and their burning desire to make a difference. Now, as an entrepreneur, we already know that we're no longer working in the trade time for dollars economy. We're all about results. And yet the best teams need to work in the same economy that you do about results. And so the best teams that work in that economy, they have perfect alignment for results. And what are these results? They are the what? That you've spent time crafting and honing to a gleaming shine. Now most first time and maybe even some experienced leaders spend too much time in my opinion with the how. Now there are many reasons why this is maybe it's the need for control. Maybe it's because leaders have settled for some warm bodies to fill roles rather than adults. elevating their game as leaders to attract and grow a plus teams. Now a plus players are not going to settle for being micromanaged or told how to do their work. They deserve clear, decisive and consistent leadership. But even more if you can meet this threshold of separating the what, from the how, there's one more special ingredient that is required, and I call this the bridge to teamwork. So if leaders are responsible for the what, and the team members we recruit, and train and nurture, are responsible for the how this bridge to teamwork brings both together in beautiful harmony and alignment. You want to know what the bridge is a shared why a shared Why is the bridge between what and how, again, as the leader, it's essential that we make the what is clear as we possibly can, and adding an equally compelling Why is the rocket fuel that sets your team on fire for making your desired what results not only possible, but in evitable. Now set a different way. A what without a compelling why lands with that bud on the desk of your team members, it feels more like a confusing demand. Because of result without context leaves your team members spending time trying to make a connection between their work and the company's purpose. Why fuels purpose, provides context and shows the path to a larger benefit of taking your what on down here and for love of team. We think this is so foundational and so fundamental, that we teach you the leader, how to find great people to fill your needs for how more importantly than getting those team members on board. We want to equip you with coaching and tools so that you break bad habits of how micromanagement and control focusing you on your what and why making those as compelling as possible, attracts and keeps a plus team members in building this bridge of teamwork. So this is so habit forming, it is such a counter to what we know and experience as founders, that I've got a little challenge for you over the next week maybe to catch yourself in interacting with your team if you have one today. Or imagine that you have one in the future, catch yourself how many times you ask a how question in your business. And whenever you begin to answer to begin with a how question in your business. See if you can reframe it somehow to gain more clarity on what or why. Or here's the really cool part of this. Who can help you deliver your how, if you can begin to think about the Who's that exists in your network today that are perfectly positioned to deliver a house result for you. This is the step of starting to build your team, not with an org chart, not with this formula that you may be seeking in copying and looking at other peer businesses. But this gets to the essence of leadership. You spend time in what deliver that as crisply and confidently and with as much clarity as possible, followed up by a compelling why you will have who's coming out of the woodwork who are perfectly positioned to deliver a howl that is beyond anything that you can imagine. And more importantly, why would you ever want to spend time in the house ever again, when you surround yourself with folks like that? This is the essence of getting to freedom in your business. The freedom and margin that we talked about here for love of team. So this is this is gonna be a hard one to really understand and incorporate you may have to go back and listen to this podcast again. Because even now here 40 years later, I forget, it's so easy for me to just go back to that house because I've got a picture of what I'm trying to do and how I want things done. But it's more important for me to be crystal clear and decisive on my what and paint a picture of that. Why? Because then I can focus my next bit of energy on surrounding myself with the who's responsible for the hell in that cool. You don't have to listen to this one again. I'm sure it's so habit for me. We want to tell people to how we want to figure out the how and it's not necessarily My area of gifting in the business, probably not yours, either. As a visionary founder what that settle, okay friend, but you know I say this at the end of the most recent podcast and I'm gonna say it again today, I'm really curious about where you are on your journey of building a team that you love. This is the magic ingredient that will help you multiply your impact your income, your margin and your freedom in business. Imagine a world of business where you are surrounding yourself with others doing work they love simplifying your business, so that you can serve more focusing on the work that you love. So I want to hear how you're doing what's what's on your heart? What kinds of things are you wrestling with, maybe ask a question that we can answer on a future podcast. You can text me or leave a voicemail to this number. This is my personal number 1-754-800-9461 that's 1-754-800-9461 and there's no autoresponders or bots on the other end of that number. It's just me not my team. Share your name and story. Share your question or comment. I want to hear from you. This is a US based text number 1-754-800-9461 I do not answer that number. You can leave a voicemail though. 1-754-800-9461. And remember, as we've been talking about now for the last several podcast, leaders simplified teamwork, and this is what helps multiply your impact, income and margin and freedom. Can't wait to connect with you on the next podcast.