How to enhance Team Performance And Assessment In The Workplace
2. Trusting Teams | THE 5 PRACTICES
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trusting teams I went on a business trip
to Las Vegas and they put me up at the
Four Seasons out there which is a
beautiful hotel and one of the reasons
it's a wonderful hotel is not because of
the fancy beds any hotel can buy a fancy
bed the reason the Four Seasons is a
fantastic hotel is because of the people
who work there that when you roam the
halls and somebody says hello you get
the distinct feeling that they wanted to
say hello not that they were told to say
hello we're highly tuned social animals
we can tell the difference it's like we
can always tell when someone's working
on Commission right you can kind of feel
it right we can tell the difference when
somebody's genuinely being friendly or
not they happen to have a coffee bar in
the lobby they're at the Four Seasons in
Las Vegas and one afternoon I went and
bought myself a cup of coffee and there
was a barista working that day named
Noah no it was funny and engaging
charming I spent far too long standing
there buying my cup of coffee because I
just so enjoyed talking to Noah so as is
my nature I asked Noah question I said
do you like your job and without
skipping a beat Noah said I love my job
now in my line of business that's
significant because like is rational I
like the people I work with I like the
job I like the challenge I get paid well
I like my job love is emotional it's a
higher order connection do you love your
wife I like her a lot right there's
there's a difference Noah said I love my
job my ears perked up he has an
emotional connection to this company
this is interesting so I immediately
follow up and I said tell me
specifically what the Four Seasons is
doing that you would say to me you love
your job without skipping a beat Noah
said that throughout the day managers
will walk past him and ask him how he's
doing ask them there's anything that he
needs to do his job better not just his
manager any manager and then he also
said I also work at Caesar's Palace and
they're the managers walk past us and
catch us when we're doing things wrong
and
make sure that we're making the numbers
and performing and there I like to just
keep my head below the radar and get
through the day and collect my paycheck
he said only at the four seasons do I
feel I can be myself this is the exact
same human being and yet the customer
service experience that we would have
meeting in at one hotel or the other
will be profoundly different not because
of the person but because of the leaders
because the leadership environment in
which he's been asked to work I get this
question all the time
Simon how do we get the most out of our
people they're not a towel we don't
wring them out to see how much we can
get out of our people it's a flawed
question which means we're gonna get
flawed answers the correct question is
how do we create an environment in which
our people can work at their natural
best and the answers will be profoundly
different if you do not have trusting
teams what you do have is a group of
people who show up to work every single
day lying hiding and faking remember a
trusting team is when people feel safe
it's a trusting team as when people feel
they can be vulnerable amongst their own
they can raise their hand and say I made
a mistake or you promoted me to a
position where I don't really know what
to do I think I need more training or
I'm having troubles at home and it's
affecting my work or I'm scared or I
need help without any fear of
humiliation without any fear of
retribution in fact they say these
things with confidence that their leader
their boss their colleagues were rushed
to them to support them if you do not
have trusting teams what you have is a
group of people who show up to work
every day who will hide mistakes for
fear of getting in trouble they will not
admit that you promoted them to a
position and they actually have no clue
what they're doing they're going to just
keep faking it they would never tell you
that they're suffering undue stress
because of something that's happening at
home and that it's affecting their work
they're not going to tell you that
they're scared and they're definitely
not going to ask for help for fear that
they'll find themselves on
short list for the next round of
redundancies and eventually cracks will
show up and eventually the organization
will break not because of the people but
because of the leaders leading those
people we know what this looks like in
the extreme I'm sure you all remember a
couple of years ago United Airlines had
an incident where they dragged a paying
customer off their aircraft with a
broken nose broken teeth and a
concussion I feel sorry for every single
member of that crew because 100% of them
knew that that was the wrong thing to do
but none of them spoke up none of them
intervened because they feared getting
in trouble more than doing the right
thing they did not work on trusting
teams this was not an anomaly this is a
steady build over the course of years
that eventually culminated in an event
like that I was witness to a scene that
played out years before with United
Airlines that gave a flag that something
was wrong a scene played out in front of
me as I was preparing to board a plane
where one of the passengers attempted to
board the aircraft before their group
number was called which as you all know
is a serious crime and that is exactly
how the gate agent treated this
passenger step aside sir I haven't
called your group yet please step aside
and wait till I call your group is how
she talked to a paying customer and so I
spoke up I said why do you have to talk
to us that way why can't you talk to us
like we're human beings and she looked
me in the eye and said sir if I don't
follow the rules I could get in trouble
or lose my job what she revealed to me
is that she does not feel safe in our
own organization her leaders do not
trust her to do the job for which she's
been trained to do and guess who suffers
company customer and her the reason we
love flying Virgin Atlantic for example
is not because they have some magical
formula to hire all the best people it's
because the people who work there feel
safe in their own jobs they feel trusted
to do the job for which they've been
trained to do and guess who benefits
customer company and the people who work
there
it is a leaders responsibility to set an
environment leadership is not about
being in charge leadership is about
taking care of those in your charge
leaders are not responsible for the
results
they're responsible for the people who
are responsible for the results and if
you get the environment right you get
people like Noah if you get the
environment wrung you get people like
Noah
it's not the people it's the leaders
almost always when there are performance
issues almost always when there are
customer service issues it's so rarely
the people yes we have anomalies of
course but if unbalanced you find that
there's issues it's almost always the
leadership in the leadership environment
and usually it's the lack of trusting
teams the job of leadership is to create
trusting teams and if you want to play
in the infinite game you must have
trusting teams one of the worst things
about trusting teams is how you build
them because they're not traditional in
the sense that we set a target we're
gonna build our teams of trust and we
set out to build them it's more of a
practices like getting into shape it's
like going to the gym yes you want to
get into shape
unfortunately you can't go to the gym
for nine hours and get into shape it
won't work but if you commit yourself to
go to the gym every single day for 20
minutes 100% you'll get into shape Simon
how long is it gonna take me to get into
shape I don't know and that's the
problem someone some will respond
quickly and some will respond slowly and
there is no formula but we all 100% know
that the process works we a hundred
percent know that if you work out every
single day for 20 minutes and eat
healthily 100 percent of us will get
into shape it's the same in leadership
there's no five magical things that I
can tell you to do there's no one day
course you can go take or one off-site
you can have with your team or all of a
sudden they become trusting teams yes
those things are important but they're
part of a process a process that we
trust in that process is called
leadership leadership is a lifestyle and
even when you achieve your goal even
when you get into shape even when the
trusting teams are built unfortunately
you have to keep going to the gym for
the rest of your life it's a lifestyle
leadership is a lifestyle and the
purpose of that lifestyle is to produce
teams who take
of each other who love each other and
feel valued and valuable in the
organization where they work that is
your job
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