The Trust Problem Founders Don't Know They're Creating with Patrick Farran

Trust is one of the most important assets in a growing company—and one of the easiest to damage without realizing it.

This week, we sit down with Patrick Farran, founder of Ad Lucem Group, former SAS Institute consulting leader, and former Notre Dame MBA faculty member, to unpack what trust actually means inside a scaling organization and why it often becomes the hidden bottleneck to growth.

Patrick breaks trust into four practical dimensions every leader can evaluate:

•  Competence 
•  Integrity 
•  Transparency 
•  Psychological Safety 

We discuss why many founders treat trust as something people either have or don't have, when in reality it's built—or damaged—through hundreds of small leadership decisions. You'll learn how micromanagement silently communicates distrust, why asking for feedback on decisions you've already made can destroy credibility, and how unclear communication creates friction that leaders often mistake for performance problems.

We also dive into one of the most overlooked leadership tools for scaling companies: the one-on-one meeting.

Patrick shares how great leaders transform one-on-ones from status updates into conversations that build trust, accelerate development, and improve accountability. We explore practical frameworks for creating more meaningful discussions, using appreciation to strengthen relationships, and ending meetings with clear commitments that eliminate ambiguity.

Know more here:
https://www.amazon.com/Intentional-Executive-Purpose-Driven-Transform-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0GMLJLBDM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QS1NR59LV0M1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Jhq5N5umvndKN8x0AN7tZghw1VaeY4SIshkzMWZzjQLbLoajtc7ahIWrcSFNA-XsMofeUrD63RJT_e8nWmadJmdfkmKGoSFMuJ4kD5_K8wUZpJush54zOOI-AOJb4qJ4HmEzfskXjlh-AavDlq2hF1U8uXMYB6oNv7yDc8csAdaypKhLGYIQ6JM3G0I1M0eowW7J3CdbYLVLm9ivc0wdtUn_wXDukNN89WSl13umBv4.0apIumuubPDnK6t62OumnO7smlrlkalsgVFiKJ-vvSg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+intentional+executive&qid=1782828622&sprefix=the+intentional+executive%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1#averageCustomerReviewsAnchor

In this episode, you'll learn:

✅ The four dimensions of trust every leader should measure
 ✅ Why micromanagement damages culture faster than most founders realize
 ✅ How leaders unintentionally lose credibility with their teams
 ✅ A simple framework for running more effective one-on-ones
 ✅ How trust impacts accountability, performance, and execution
 ✅ Why culture is built through daily behaviors—not mission statements

If you're building a company that needs to scale beyond constant founder oversight, this conversation offers practical strategies for creating stronger leaders, healthier teams, and a culture people actually want to be part of.

Follow Scaling with People for more conversations on leadership, culture, and building companies that grow without breaking.

Transcript

Opening And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to Scaling with People, your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth. Each week we go under the hood with battle test experts in all areas of business, from marketing to sales, operation, finance, and people, plus product and leadership to unpack the plays, numbers, and systems that turn chaos into compounding growth. Learn straight from founders and experts who've done it and continue to do it successfully. There's zero fluff, just moves that you can still immediately. This podcast is brought to you by Guide to HR, human expertise, AI-powered impact. Welcome everyone. So on today's episode, we sit down with Patrick Ferron, founder of Alutum Group, former SAS Institute Consulting Director, and former Notre Dame MBA faculty member to unpack why trust is the operating system behind every high-performing team. From transforming one-on-ones into a leadership growth engine to diagnosing the hidden culture factors that separate thriving teams from struggling ones, Patrick shares practical frameworks, leaders can comply immediately. So if you're scaling a company and wondering why communication, accountability, andor performance still feel harder than they should, this conversation may reveal the real gap you've been trying to solve. Well, welcome, Patrick. Excited to have you on the call and excited to get into this topic too. This is where my wheelhouse is. So this is going to be fun. But before we get started,

Founder Reality Check On Delegation

SPEAKER_02 1:34

tell the audience a little bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Great. So uh I am a founder myself. So I try to practice what I preach, and I've worked with literally hundreds of founders over six continents, actually, uh in multiple capacities, some of them through startup uh ecosystems that I've I've uh coached and mentored in. And I've got a number of startup uh clients that I've worked with. So I know the space. Uh the other thing that I would add as a practitioner, I also bring a research band. Well, I have my PhD. The only person who called me doctor is my wife when she's being snarky. Uh but we do try to infuse uh the research best practices around uh what we build and test out in the market.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

All right. So all my listeners know I love putting my founders on the hot seat. Can you share an experience you had where if you could go back in time, you would tell yourself, don't do that or do it differently, a lesson learned with the audience.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Lesson learned. So many. Let's see what would top of mind. I would say, you know, for for those of us in startups or those of us thinking uh about starting uh something up, there's a there's a dynamic that I often see though. A lot of us romanticize the idea of a startup and being a founder and have this notion of what it's going to be. We like that idea, but then the reality hits. Now, I've always been uh a workaholic, I enjoy work, I find deep meaning in my work. Uh, but there are just things that we often take for granted uh in terms of, you know, I came from corporate and so we had all the resources around the business development side of things there and so forth. And you you realize you have to wear all the hats. Uh and there are things that took me a while to learn the hard way that I needed to let go, you know, a botched invoice or a missed marketing piece, because I'm trying to do all the things early on, as many of our founders on online here can probably relate to. Uh, so the more quickly you can identify those things that you need to delegate out and operationalize and so forth. Um, I learned the hard way as we all do, um, that you need to, you know, be mindful of what areas you're actually spending time working in the business.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah, absolutely. It seems to be a recurring theme that that is one of the top lesson learns that I hear from founders all over the place, including myself. I always try to chant throughout the day am I working on the right thing at the right time to move the needle in the direction I'm like my goal, right? Whether it's the goal for the day, week, month, quarter, whatever it might be. Um, and especially it is hard when you're wearing all those hats because sometimes you get into something that you might not be the subject matter expert, but you know, you're probably like me and we're probably like most founders out there. We're smart and we want to know how we want to know how the sausage is made. So there's value in that, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

But you need to be able to end cap that.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Exactly, exactly. And start actually focusing on the areas in which you could actually move the business forward. So, you know, I know you spent more than 25 years helping organizations navigate change, culture, leadership. What's one leadership behavior you see consistently separating organizations that scale successfully from those that struggle?

Co-Creation Builds Real Buy-In

SPEAKER_01 4:35

My my one big passion, there's multiple ones, but one that I really harp on. I actually uh did a TED talk on this earlier this season. We talk about in our book as well. There's this really one of my favorite studies talks about uh IKEA furniture. Probably most of us know what IKEA furniture is. For those that don't, it's a assemble it yourself. And there was a really interesting study a number of years ago that researchers found that people who put together this IKEA furniture valued more highly that furniture, that piece of furniture they built, and were willing to pay a premium, uh, pay more for that actually than a pre-assembled piece of identical furniture. In fact, they found it was 63% more, which is pretty crazy when you think about it. Yeah. And I share this because the reality is we are wired as human beings to overvalue what we create and what we have voice into building. And most leaders uh tend to default to, you know, there's this old paradigm that we've been taught that leaders should have all the answers, right? Coming back to our earlier comments about, you know, trying to figure it out and so forth. And so a lot of times, particularly in the startup world, we try to have all the answers and we try to set the vision, which is important to have vision, but we neglect to bring people along for the ride. We neglect to invite them in to co-create that. So to the extent that you can create uh opportunities to co-create that solution, you're gonna have much more effective buy-in and support and accelerate the growth of whatever you're trying to scale to do.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, that makes sense. And you know, I I love my home uh renovation shows. And there's one that is all about, you know, putting in the grunt work, you know, putting in sweat into sweat equity is what they call it, right? And I think there's a little bit of that where you when you do that, then you do value it a bit more because you know how much work went into creating that. Um, so you know, one of the things I I see a lot with founders

Trust Is Not Binary

SPEAKER_02 6:25

and leaders in general is they say trust is important, but what do they usually misunderstand about trust from your perspective? I have my own thoughts. Curious if they match your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, I I think there's there's a whole body of research on this. I think to make it really sort of accessible. I think one of the big misses is that we view trust as binary. You have it or you don't. Trust is complicated, right? There are at least there's multi-dimensions. I say there's at least four practical ones that I encourage founders to be mindful of. The the first one that we talked about, this kind of harkens back to our earlier observation is competence, right? We want to be able to have folks understand that we know our stuff, right? So that's important to engendering a certain amount of trust. The the other factor that I think is really important to note is integrity, right? Uh what our words match our actions, what we say, what we do, and so forth. And if you're not, you're gonna break down on that particular dimension. Uh the third factor is transparency, right? This relates to the co-creation piece, right? If I am uh just managing and telling and dictating and so forth, but I'm not necessarily commuting communicating or inviting folks in along the way, that level of transparency is gonna break down pretty quickly. And the fourth and perhaps most important is that there's psychological safety. Um that people feel safe to bring bad news. How often are we in environments where I'm afraid to raise the flag? There's a whole body of research. We could spend the entire episode talking about this factor a lot. But uh cultivating those areas, and if you're failing on uh multiple dimensions here, it's really important to think about which one, which one needs the most work and focus on that would be my my advice to to founders is uh because you can't necessarily work on them all at the same time, but it's important to be aware of those uh each of those dimensions play a role.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah. I'd actually add another one.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, it reconciles for for your model.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

I would say the one thing that I think of, if I were to maybe pull it all in one bullet point of my experience, is is that trust is a two-way street. And I find so many times leaders and founders expect to be trusted but don't trust those around them. And that breaks trust instantly.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

100%.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

And then they look to me and going, why aren't they trusting what I'm telling them? I know this is gonna be the best for the company or for them or for the department, whatever it is. I'm just like, because you don't trust them back. Like, yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Um, so if you think about the competence one, right? If I if I'm trying to do everything, and the the implicit message to your point is I'm sending is I don't trust you to do this marketing piece or I don't trust you to do this invoice or whatever, fill in the blank, right? And that's uh to your point is you're you're gonna erode that trust.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah. So what do you how would like if a leader is like, huh, now they have like this epiphany of like, oh, maybe this is where I'm struggling, what would be like how can they diagnose where they're at in regards to is it a competence, communication, or trust problem?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Like what would be like a step or two that they could take if that's I think first of all, noting those areas and just doing some self-reflection on them. You know, we actually have a team team diagnostic on our site that is free if folks want to take it. We go a little bit deeper in some of these areas, and I'm happy to share those links. But I think that the simple answer is really assessing and asking yourself do folks feel safe bringing the bad news, right? It is one easy question to ask, right? Do am I tending to be a micromanager, right? That might be signaling the competence and your and to your point the the two-way trust there, right? Yeah. Uh um,

How Leaders Accidentally Break Trust

SPEAKER_01 9:55

is there a sense of ownership that folks are feeling bought in, or do I feel like I'm always pushing that proverbial spaghetti up the rope, so to speak, right? Those are indicators that something is probably not optimal in one or more of those areas. Um, so those are some preliminary thoughts that I could already, again, I could spend a whole lot more time on.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, I just think you know this one scenario where I was working with this one founder and he knew he had trust problems. He knew his leadership or his management group didn't trust him, but he also didn't trust them. And I think really that was the stem of it. He didn't trust them. And then he's like, how do I fix it? Like, you know, like like, but he also I don't think really wanted to fix it, but he wanted it to not be a problem. You know what I mean? But like I guess part one of that question is what's an example that you've seen where a leadership's behavior unintentionally destroys trust, even when the leader has good intentions.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I think uh coming back to the co-creation piece, how many times for those of us in organizations has someone asked for our feedback on a foregone conclusion? And it's really just performative, right? They really don't care. They just want us to rubber stamp and say, Oh, what a great idea. And then they push back when we we start to actually give them the feedback. Oh, you really don't want our feedback, apparently, right? That there's no quicker way to erode trust than to roll something out. So, what do you think of this, right? When it's not really a genuine ask.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And I can see um leaders doing that where it's like, well, I want to have them feel like they have a say, bring them in the fold. But not really.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Really, not really.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

I've seen it happen in in interviews too. Like they'll like, you know, especially when you're interviewing a leader, oh, we'll bring in our the number two of that department, or maybe some of the team members, but they'll be at the very end because ultimately all we're doing is just having them have an introduction call, but we're seeing it in a couple of things.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

And it falls apart then, right? And and and it's in fairness, it's a natural human reaction because we feel like, oh, it's being more efficient, right? Uh I often talk about the dynamic of it's important to go slow to go fast. All those extra conversations you have on the front end to invite people in, invite the feedback, and so forth will save you the cleanup on aisle four when everything blows up because you neglected to bring folks along for the ride.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

So if someone is listening today and wants to strengthen trust immediately, what's one thing they could do this week or you know, tomorrow, even one of my favorite mechanisms for this is really retooling the way we think about and perform

One-On-Ones That Grow People

SPEAKER_01 12:20

one-on-one conversations, right? Oftentimes one-on-ones default to they're merely status meetings, status updates, and they're very transactional and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Or because HR is telling the department to do it, we become the bad guy so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

They become a performative, check the box, right? No one wants to do them and so forth. And so that's not at all what I'm suggesting. But to really look at those and rebrand those and the way we approach those, look at them as opportunities to enhance performance, thinking about how we can help folks find opportunity within the role. Um, I did my my dissertation research, one of my other passions is on meaningful work, and so if you can help folks craft their role in a way that's meaningful for to them, the growth trajectory that they care about, et cetera, the more you can tune into that and find those opportunities of synergy and just the fact the mere opportunity, the mere ask, tell me what you find most engaging about your work here, right? And genuinely wanting to understand the answer that invites and engenders trust.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Um thinking about what that what is that parlay to in terms of the development opportunities, both both for the individual as well as for the organization, right? Are there opportunities here that you're seeing? What what do you need to be successful here? What are we missing? What could we do to enhance things even further? And then it's really important the fourth area then is to close with with clear accountability. What's happening next? What's the next thing that we need to identify and who's taking what between now and our next call together? The thing that is really important is that I I always encourage whenever possible, starting these meetings with what we call an appreciative anchor. And by that I mean uh starting with a positive lens, a positive question. So, for example, a really easy one. What's uh Gwenavir, what's been a win that you've experienced this week, personally or professionally or otherwise, right? Yeah. What's something that or that you found meaningful uh in your in your work, etc.? Uh something you're you you're grateful for, right? Any there's a whole battery of questions, and we share some of those in our book as resources. But the point is when we engage with that at the onset of a meeting, it gets us on a trajectory for more generative thinking. Then if I come and say, Gweniver, tell me about that problem that this customer raised last week. Our minds, when we start with the deficit mindset, we get stuck in this rut. And that sets the shade and tone for the rest of that conversation.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

So it's a really Yeah, because it just sets people's defenses up. 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

So I love that question about like what is it that like was meaningful to you? Because that kind of actually starts the thread of understanding what they enjoy working on and why, to then start leaning towards, oh, like I mean, I again with my HR lens, we there's so much we do. Like I have people that are in my that work for me, they hate payroll, they like and benefits. Like if I were to ever to give them a client that they had to do that, they probably would leave me, kind of thing, right? They need to do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I'm sure there are people who love that, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Exactly. And I'm gonna be the one of those, like, if you make me recruit every day for all day long, I'm gonna probably like, you know, try to, you know, join a nun or something, a nunnery or something, right? Like so um understanding what people enjoy doing, that's where people thrive in. It doesn't mean they can't learn and still do other things, but having that actually gives the manager the framework of understanding where they can help continue growing that person and then have that more bigger growth conversation. I I wish I had that in my tool belt a while ago when I was talking to somebody who's like, I don't know where I want to go. I just enjoy what I'm doing. But if I had asked them that kind of question, I might have actually helped them get there. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

What one other tool I'll mention that I really am a big fan of is what Adam Grant and other uh others out in the field talk about is it's the user manual. And making this having this explicit exercise where your team members can take any number of forms, and again, I've got this as part of a resource kit as well, if folks want to grab it later. Uh, but identifying how do I operate? What are my preferences? What you know, some teams actually will do like strengths finder or other instruments and they'll build that in as part of it, but you don't necessarily need those. But if I if I say, Gwennavere, you know, I I appreciate closed loops in my emails, for example, right? When something's done, I appreciate the final email. Whereas someone else, the next person might say, you know, don't don't hit my inbox, you know, slack me or text me, or don't bother me after such all these things that we tend to find out by trial and error, and then we like, oh, that wasn't the right move, or oh, why are they upset? Or how are you, you know, sometimes like one of the direct I do community theater for for hobby, one of my directors, he just says, you know, I just he says, I just have RBF. My face is always just, you know, I my my demeanor, my emotions. I look like I'm angry. I'm not. That's just the way I am. So just know that. And just naming that as an as sort of a humorous example, right? Because when he's giving notes to the cast, we're like, that's just that's just Zach being Zach, right? We kind of know that.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah, yeah. There's a tool out there that um you said, I don't know, they still do, they have this best of self where uh a new hires come in, they fill out this little form, managers already kind of filled it out about them, and it gets shared between the two, and it helps kind of start that first like getting to know you. It's almost like an icebreaker, right? Absolutely. How and one of the questions I love is how do you like to be celebrated? Because not everybody likes to be celebrated the same way. Like not everybody wants to be public, like publicly celebrated, that especially if they're shy or an introvert. Um, others might want to be like, hey, can you just stack it up and then give me a nice raise at the end of the year? You know, right? Um, but understanding how people celebrate so that you can actually be that manager leader who hits that in the right way and really learning the person. I think that's one thing pandemic has done for us. And you know, I know we're many years past it, but it flipped that script of all employees having to basically adjust who they are and how they work to the manager. It's now flipped the manager has to adjust to each individual and how they work. Um, and I it's harder on the manager, but I think it's so much more impactful and it makes it a better culture uh and a better place to work as long as the manager is doing that work. So, question for you, because I know one-on-ones, it does sometimes turn into performance, sometimes it doesn't, but what's

Scaling One-On-Ones And Feedback

SPEAKER_02 18:35

the biggest mistake managers make during a one-on-one that you hear about?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

There's so many, obviously. I I think I think quite simply it's uh it probably boils down to overthinking, like not being present in the moment, really being there in the moment, meeting the person where they're at, when you ask a question genuinely wanting to know the answer, right? We we go through these uh one of my colleagues, uh she she her her specialty is the art of questions, right? And so we go through these performative questions that we really don't care what the answer is. We're just sort of along with it.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

She's just like mark marking it off the checkbook, checkbox.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

And so I think really taking a genuine interest in tell me Guinevere, what what is it that you most enjoy? What is it that what's the one thing that's keeping you from being able to be success, you know, as as you know, successful in this particular area as possible?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

What is that? And inviting that in a genuine way. I think that would probably be the top of mind uh thing that I see most of the.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Well, and then that goes back to what we started the conversation with, which is that actually builds trust too, because you're starting to get to know the person, you show you care, right? You're not just like you like you said, performative. I gotta ask this question, okay. I don't care what they say, the next question is da-da-da, right? Like they're actually hearing what the person's saying, they're actually processing it to continue the conversation around the answer. And I think that's that can be challenging, especially for like I'm gonna pick on my engineers, but there are some certain personalities where that can be really challenging. So um, you know, how should leaders maybe adjust their one-on-one approach, especially as the company grows, but or their own department grows, let's say from like, you know, maybe 20 employees to 200 employees, how does that actually like a manager who may only have four employees initially now has 10, 15, 40 employees? How does that one-on-one approach uh look?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

It obviously needs to be contextual in terms of how many folks and things. I'm a fan of more frequent smaller duration types of meetings versus hey, we're gonna have a quarterly one-on-one here and it's big kind of thing, right? Um I I think the other piece, you know, tying it to the the the comment a moment ago as well, is that the other element of psychological safety is if I'm asking for feedback about how our relationship was working together. So what's Glennver, what's what do you find helpful in our our work together? What's one thing that I could be doing to be more supportive to you? And again, being genuinely open to that, that engenders that psychological safety and trust. Especially if I start to uh receive that and they can see that I'm working to act on it or appropriate.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, and then it kind of spreads like wildfire. That one employee shares to the rest of the team or to one person on the team their experience working with you, and then it starts opening up. And like I've had that actually happen. Um, or I can't meet the HR person, unfortunately, was not doing their job effectively. And I came in and I about a month or two into I'm like, oh, okay, I'm not walking on eggshells, I'm walking around trying not to send out moms that have been buried for months and years. And then one person finally had the nerve to come and ask me about something. I don't even remember what. It was, but that just opened the floodgates. And for the next months, I was dealing with employee relations issues that were so hidden in the organization because everyone was like, You can't go to HR, they're not going to support you. Um, so building that one try, even though there's no psychological safety there when you've got that money. But it wasn't but what's interesting was, and I never experienced this anywhere else, it wasn't that it wasn't that the organization didn't have psychological safety, they didn't have psychological safety with the HR department, which is where the workplace is.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

That's a common right.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

I know it's like that's where you should absolutely have it, but unfortunately. Um but it is true, you build it with one person, it's gonna spread, and then you can start building it with the person. And so that actually impacts the culture, impacts the culture within that small group, within the department, maybe within the location of where those people are, and so forth. So let's talk about culture because I think when I talk about it, when I talk to different leaders about it, it feels like, oh,

Culture Shows Up In Decisions

SPEAKER_02 22:55

it's like, you know, oh that's a buzzword, or it's a word that they, you know, think, oh yeah, our value statements this or perks are that. But how would you define culture?

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Culture is is what you um it shows up in every decision you make, every conversation you have. And the un uh the frustrating thing for for folks is that you don't change culture by setting out to change culture.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

And it's not a flip of the switch, right? You can't turn it on and off at night.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

It is a byproduct of all these things we've talked about, how we show up in our one-on-ones, how we show up in our communications, how we communicate in emails, you know, meeting etiquettes, you know, just the way we, you know, interact with the other one, passing through hallways, what have you. Every one of those elements creates a culture. And one of the things that's important, especially in newer stage startups, to realize is those things uh that you start early can calcify pretty quickly, right? So it's particularly important to be mindful of those. You can do culture resets, but it's not it's it's not affected to say, hey, we're gonna change the culture, right? What tends to happen is you need to find something that the organization cares about that you can get everyone rowing in the same direction on uh and create some safe processes to build it. As a quick example, I had uh one of my marketing clients a number of years ago. They were an agency that they went through a tough period and they were actually they lost their biggest whale client and they were facing insolvency. They had a few months left of runway and they had already let some of their staff go and they're in a tough spot. And they made a decision that they had initially like we're gonna work on the plan, we're gonna communicate this out, et cetera, et cetera. And they made the hard decision to intentionally co-create the recovery, if you will. And so they brought the team together, they said they laid out their books in uh in very honest form and said, here's where we're at. The really important thing is, and this is relates to the one-on-ones as well, is the modeling. They said we don't have all the answers. We need your help, right? This is a scary time for all of us, and we just want to name this, right? We have some ideas, but we want to pressure test these with you. And they invited the team to be part of the solution. And the beauty of that, when they made themselves vulnerable to that, and they were very intentional about how they set the conversation stakes for that, yeah, they came up with better solutions as a team that the leadership would have never envisioned on their own. And the team was bought into those, and then they not only came out of that, but they're thriving today, right? So they they didn't just merely survive that. And so the one thing I would leave, folks, it's it's liberating uh as leaders to recognize I don't have to have all the answers, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:39

I can't, in fact, if you portray yourself as having all the answers, it breaks they see through it, they know you don't. Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, so crazy. I I probably interrupted that other thought. But it's curious, what are the key ingredients that consistently show up in high performing teams from a culture or any other perspective, actually?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Psychological safety would be one that comes comes to the surface, right? Yeah, uh, it's important though that you couple that with uh high performance expectations again. You know, if you just have psychological safety but no expectation,

What High-Performing Teams Share

SPEAKER_01 26:10

right? You know, everyone's gonna be comfortable, but you're not performing, right? So you need to have a standard of excellence. Uh, you need to provide appropriate operational autonomy, right? To the extent that you can let decision making flow down to the lowest operational level as feasible, right? That's going to help get you out as a founder from trying to make all the decisions, gonna build your team, you're gonna come up with better solutions and so forth. So giving that operational autonomy and having a growth mindset, a growth focus, right? Perfection isn't the standard. We're gonna make mistakes. Let's learn from them. It's okay to make demonstrating when you made a mistake as a leader and bringing that to the table and showing how we're gonna learn from that, that sets culture faster than any platitude on the wall that you're yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

And I love that, like um, you know, being able to share with the team. Like I remember there's times where I have the budget and I could do it all isolated as the department head, but I actually separated out the budget here to my generalist, to my recruiter, to my trainer, um, and have them be a part of that conversation. I think a lot of leaders miss a key aspect of that engagement, which is you're now actually helping those individuals grow to become the next leaders, whether they're the next level of leaders you need, or eventually then unfortunately seeing them go off and do something bigger and better. But there's so many times when leaders will hold hoard things because that's my job and that's what I that's, but then you're not giving your team the capability to grow and learn with you hand in hand or, you know, but stepping behind them or whatever it is. But I think that's so impactful because that actually builds trust, but it also builds a lot more. Um, what's the word I'm looking for?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Capacity for one, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Well, that too, yes. Awesome. And and loyalty, right? Someone knows that you're gonna bring them along the journey and you're gonna share things and expose them to different things of the business or their role or the department so that they can eventually take the next leap. But it goes back to understanding where they want to go, right? If that that's not what they want to do, then they're probably not gonna fulfill that task the way you need it to be fulfilled.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Yeah. So what um what quick diagnostic can leaders use to assess uh the health of their team today?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

So there's any number. I've got a free resource on our website that we can leave uh for your listeners that is helpful. It's a high-performing team. Uh I forget the exact name, nomenclature, but we can leave the link for you. I I'm also happy to share my book resources as well. In fact, we're gonna be um if if all goes according to plan here. My understanding is uh we'll be creating a Kindle Flash sale of June 24th of this summer here. And we'll have that'll be like I think you get get the Kindle for a buck. If

Resources, Offers, And Final CTA

SPEAKER_01 28:55

you have Spotify, you can get the Audible. If you have a subscription, you get that for free if you prefer that modality. So listeners want to see the resources. We built the book. Uh, you can read it cover to cover, but we built it, you can create your own adventure. And so we include a lot of the resources we use with our clients and our executives and our founders uh within their organizations. There's individual exercises, there's team exercises, there's organizational frameworks that can be really helpful and impactful. And I'm happy to share that resource with your listeners.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

I love that. Okay, so a tough question as we wrap up. As companies scale, what becomes harder? Building trust, maintaining culture, or developing leaders?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I don't think that they are mutually exclusive. Nicely played, Patrick. And you might think that's a cop out, but I, you know, in all seriousness, I I I those are all interrelated pieces. And uh I don't think you can have one without the other effectively, right? In the short term, you might be able to do one or the other, but they're if you're not working on all three of those in hand in hand, they're they're not going to be effective.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Well, Patrick, I feel like we could probably talk for hours, but I love the conversation because at the end of the day, trust creates culture, culture drives the performance, and leaders build both one conversation at a time. Uh, that's you know, basically the thread I pulled from our conversation. So thank you so much for joining us for our listeners. I hope you got so much out of it. And until you listen to our next one, have a wonderful day, week, evening, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for joining us.

unknown 30:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

That's a wrap for today's episode of Scaling with People. If you got value from this conversation, do me a favor, share it with someone building something big. And hey, I'd love to hear your take. Drop a comment, shoot me a message, or start a conversation. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss the bold, unfiltered strategies we drop every week. I'm Gwendolikary, founder and CEO of Guide2HR, where we help high growth companies scale smart with people for strategies and AI powered systems that don't just keep up, they lead. If you're building fast and want your HR to move faster, head to guide2hr.com and let's talk. And remember, scale isn't just about speed, it's about people. Until next time, have a great one.