Attitude Trumps Techniques: 4 Attitudes That Build Great Teams

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Transcript

Mike 0:02

today I wanna share four different attitudes that in my experience aren't just personal ideals. They're at the root of every strong, resilient team culture. That I have ever seen. And these attitudes are contagious. your great attitudes cascade down, by the way, your crappy attitudes. Cascade down faster and longer. So we've gotta be careful to have the right attitude.

Mike Goldman 0:35

You made it to the better leadership team show, the place where you learn how to surround yourself with the right people, doing the right things. So you can grow your business without losing your mind. I'm your host and leadership team coach, Mike Goldman. I'm going to show you how to improve top and bottom line growth, fulfillment, and the value your company adds to the world by building a better leadership team. All right, let's go.

Four Key Attitudes for Strong Team Culture

Attitude 1: Positive Intent

Mike 1:08

In my 35 plus years working with leaders and leadership teams in my 60 plus years being a human being, the truth is pretty clear to me that attitudes, trump techniques every single time. You can have every playbook and process in the world, but without the right mindset. In yourself at the top across your team. Real change. The right change is never gonna happen, and it's certainly never gonna stick. Many years ago, this would've been back in oh 2005 or so. I was in the midst of three years owning a staffing and recruiting firm. And, I had someone working for me, named Jamie. Jamie, if you're listening to this, you'll recognize this story. Jamie was great and Jamie was a good friend of mine is still a good friend of mine. And one of the things that I did. and at the time I did quarterly performance reviews, which I now hate. But in those quarterly performance reviews, one of the things I did was I asked my team member, whoever I was, doing a review for, I would turn, you know, the mirror on me and I'd say, Hey, what, what could I do to be a better leader? What could I do to improve things around here? And Jamie said, Mike, I wish you'd ask more questions. And I was floored because I had read so many leadership and management books that talked about asking the right questions, and I knew that in our daily huddles, in our weekly meetings, I was asking them the whole team questions all the time. So I thought she's got to be wrong. And I'm like, I said, Jamie, what? What do you mean I ask you guys questions all the time? And she said, Mike, you do. But we always come back around to your idea and what I realized is, although I had the technique. Down and asking questions. I was doing it as a technique. I really didn't give a crap. I still believed in my head that I was the smartest guy in the room. So I'm, I was asking questions as a technique, but I really wasn't curious or as curious as I should have been to really hear and evaluate the answers. So the technique was there, but the attitude. Wasn't. So today I wanna share four different attitudes that in my experience aren't just personal ideals. They're at the root of every strong, resilient team culture. That I have ever seen. And these attitudes are contagious. They, especially from the top, if you are that one of the leaders of your company or the leader of your company, these attitudes cascade down and your crappy attitudes cascade down. your great attitudes cascade down, by the way, your crappy attitudes. Cascade down faster and longer. So we've gotta be careful to have the right attitude. So I'm gonna share four with you and the first is having an attitude of positive intent. And like a few other attitudes we're gonna talk about, I have done whole podcast episodes or whole in this case, is a TEDx called the Antidote to Anger, which you could look up, all about the idea of positive intent. And positive intent is the practice of assuming others' actions are rooted in good intentions. Even when you feel. Triggered or disagree with someone. It doesn't mean you ignore bad behavior, but it means instead of the story you tell in your head about their negative intent, that they woke up this morning and said, what can I screw up today? Instead of telling that story? We tell a story that says they're just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. So if we disagree or, we're triggered or we think they're just being a pain in the ass on purpose, we ask the question, what else could this mean before we react? And you know, we are. And maybe I'll just personalize and say, I know that I. Much more naturally assume the negative intent in other people. If someone cuts me off on the highway going 90 miles an hour, I don't automatically think, oh, I hope they're okay. I hope, you know, maybe they're rushing to the bedside of a loved one, that, you know, that's sick and I hope everything's okay. Of course, I don't think that, I think that lunatic knows he's putting lives in danger, but he's doing it anyway. I assume negative intent, you know, in this country, when we look at left versus right, or liberal versus conservative. Each side thinks the other side is crazy and assumes negative intent. In my TED talk, the antidote to anger. and if this resonates with you, go do a Google search on Mike Goldman TEDx and you'll find it. I talk about a story of me and my son, Richie, and frankly, what a crappy dad I was for the first. 12 years or so, of his life and only got better slowly. And I was a crappy dad because of all the negative intent I assumed in him. calling a team member lazy is assuming negative intent. In the other person as leaders, if we speak or

7:12

act

Attitude 2: It's Not About Winning

Attitude 3: Embracing Coachability

Attitude 4: The Power of Vulnerability

Conclusion: Attitudes Shape Team Success

Mike 7:13

with blame, with cynicism, we give our culture permission to turn toxic. But when we assume the best in other people, and again, it doesn't mean everybody's doing the right thing, it doesn't mean everybody in our organization, you know, has the capability to be great in the role they're playing either. But when we assume the best, it opens up the door for honest conversation. We turn frustration. Into curiosity, right? If we assume negative intent in someone, we get pissed off. We get frustrated at that guy that cut us off on the highway or our son that won't get off his video game or someone on the political spectrum that believes something that we think is horrendous. we get frustrated, but when we believe someone's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. When we ask, what else could this mean? As opposed to the story we're telling ourselves in our head, we turn that frustration into curiosity. We wanna ask questions. What do they know that I don't know? What resources do they have that I don't have? what resources do I have that they don't have? Teams with positive intent are safer, more collaborative. Mistakes become learning moments versus a place to blame, you know, contrasted with cultures where the intent is in question. People tend to hide mistakes and avoid tough conversations or act defensively, so, so how do we turn? if you're anything like me and your immediate reaction is more negative intent, how do we turn negative intent into positive intent? How do we turn frustration into curiosity? Well, first check your story, right? Life is about the stories we tell ourselves in our head. They're what's reality? Reality is the story we're telling ourselves in our head. There's no one right reality. Notice when you're making negative assumptions in someone, pause and ask, what else could this mean? So, so check your story. Number two, model this with your team, and by modeling it, model it aloud in a meeting saying, Hey, I assume everyone here has the best interests at heart. Let's figure out what's behind this disagreement. That we have. So say things that model this aloud to your team. Challenge language, your own language, but the language on your team. You know, if you hear people labeling people in toxic ways, stop that. If you hear things like lazy, replace it with a learning question. You know, Hey, what's really going on here? Ask, don't accuse. Before correcting someone or coaching someone, lead with curiosity. You know, ask, help me understand what happened. You know, not, why did you screw this up? Help me understand what happened. So that first attitude is an attitude of intent. The second attitude is an attitude of the idea of it. It's not about. Winning. You know, an attitude about winning every argument could be very dangerous. True leadership is about seeking the best outcome, not winning the conversation. It's about balancing candor and curiosity, and sometimes we'd rather be right than effective. So I was working with a CEO a very talented, brilliant, CEO. Who really believed strongly in an option that they were debating. They were debating three different options on how to attack something. and this CEO really believed strongly in one option and was fighting with everything. He had to get the team to understand that his opinion was the right one, and someone on his team. Had the gall to challenge his way of thinking and came at it with a different opinion and he crushed this poor leader. He treated this guy like he was a hostile witness on the stand. You know, when is the last time we ever did something like that? And it actually worked. So you are telling me you think if we did that, it would have this result. Crush this poor guy. Now, when do you think the next time this leader will challenge him? Like there's no way, you know, in that leader's head they said, well, I'm never doing that again. I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut as probably most of the rest of the leadership team thought. There is a great book. That I have all my clients read called Conversational Capacity, and the idea of conversational capacity says that our goal when we are in a debate is not to win the argument. and that sounds weird, right? Because we feel like winning the argument. Is what it's all about. It's like Darwin's law, you know, of leadership. You know, two great ideas come together and you fight it out as best you can and the best idea is gonna win. Or you come up with a third better idea. And while that sometimes happen and it happens, and that sounds pretty logical when you try to win, especially if you're the leader of the team, when you try to win, you shut everybody else down. And in conversational capacity, what the author talks about is the idea of the goal of a debate is not to win. The goal of the debate is to gather the information necessary to make the right decision in that moment. So what that means is, you know you, that doesn't mean you can't feel strongly about an opinion. But if you assume that there are a bunch of other smart people in the room with positive intent to kind of link back to our first attitude, then you need to understand that there may be some information you don't have. So you might say something like, Hey, I feel really strongly about this and it's hard for me to see another way, but I also know there's a lot of smart people in the room, so help me understand what I'm missing. When all we're focused on is fighting for what we think is right, we stop listening. So we have to make sure that we do something to allow us and the rest of the team to hear other opinions and other information. So what do we do? How do we turn from winning, from having a, an attitude of winning to an attitude of gathering the information we need to make the right decision. And, number one tactic is to, you know, name the goal, not the position. So if you are the leader, you know, make sure people understand the goal is the best solution. The goal is not to be right. Practice listening to others around the table, listening so intently that you could explain their point of view back to them and back to the team. Invite the quietest voice around the table to speak up. Ask questions like, who sees it differently? And don't say it with the wrong attitude. Well, who sees this differently? Well, that's like saying, you know who out there is a moron, but truly ask the question, Hey, there's no one right answer here. You know, who sees this differently? You know what? What are we missing here in this discussion? And set the ground rules at the beginning of a meeting, at the beginning of a debate, a ground rule around getting all perspectives out. A ground rule about gathering information, not trying to be right, and you might even debrief the meeting after a meeting, you know, or at the end of a meeting say, Hey, did anyone here feel shut down or ignored in that discussion? We just had, what could we adjust next time to make sure all the voices are heard? Let's go to the third attitude, and the third attitude is having an attitude of coachability, an attitude of knowing that you have a lot to learn. Coachability, I think, is the deepest measure of a leader's growth. Mindset and it's not binary. it's not, you're coachable or you're not coachable. It's a continuum you have to constantly work at. And it starts with a pretty radical self-assessment. and not only is it a continuum, but being coachable may be different in different environments. You may be coachable with someone you are reporting to or with your coach or with a consultant. But you may not be very coachable when it comes to your peers on the team, or you may be coachable, with your peers, but you not, you may not be very coachable as it comes from things you hear from direct reports on your team. It's important to understand that this takes work and more knowledge always exists outside of you than inside. The most dangerous thing you could do as a leader is say, I've got this all figured out. And what I've seen is when I have this discussion with leaders are very quick to question other people's coachability, but they're very slow to look in the mirror at their own coachability. You know, and every time I see a team that's stuck in old habits, I start with the leader. I ask the leader, how are you growing? Who's coaching you? In fact, one of the questions I ask a prospective, CEO. That I talk to that wants me to coach them and their leadership team is CEOs when they're, their prospects for my coaching business are typically doing a lot of complaining about their team or the environment or their clients or their board. And one of the questions I ask them to see how coachable they are is I say to them, I understand all that, but where do you need to improve to help your business get to the next level? And if they are, if they have an answer to that or they start pondering that, then there's, I know there's a level of coachability there, but if they jump back at me and say, it's not about me, it's about my team, or it's not about me, it's about the economy, then man, I really question their coachability and I question whether I'm gonna be successful working with them. The most successful leaders and the most successful teams are led by leaders who admit openly that they don't have all the answers. Coachability is not about being perfect. It's about being open to stretching, learning, admitting blind spots in front of your team. And as the leader goes, so goes the team. So if you as the leader aren't very coachable, then your team is not gonna be very coachable. If you are not willing to be coachable about your mistakes, your team is not gonna be willing to call you out on them more or be willing to admit their mistakes. So what do we need to do? To go from an attitude of, I've got the answers to an attitude of being coachable. Number one, never stop learning. Be public about what you are reading, learning, being coached on. Put away your ego. Admit when you don't know Ask for help routinely tell your team about something you are working on. Hey, say, Hey, I'm not very good at this. I could use some help. Right, and in doing that, solicit feedback. You know, make sure there are kind of regular check-ins where your team could periodically share feedback with you. Encourage peer coaching. One of the things I love to do with my leadership team clients is do do something I call coaching triads where they get in groups of three and they coach each other where they start off and one person says, Hey, here's something I'm struggling with that I need coaching on, and the other two on the team coach them. There's also something I do called the peer accountability exercise. Whereas leaders help each others grow by each leader, giving each other leader around the table feedback on something they do that they want to thank them for. That helps the team and something they do that they wish they'd changed because it hurts the team. In fact, do a search on my podcast. I do a whole episode about how to facilitate the peer feedback exercise. The fourth and last attitude that we're gonna talk about. That I'm gonna talk about on this episode is vulnerability. Vulnerability is non-negotiable. Vulnerability is the ability to say to your team, I screwed up. I need help. I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this. It's about giving and receiving feedback without fear. Of retribution. I can remember when COVID hit and everybody was working remotely. So many CEOs I worked with felt like they needed to be, you know, Superman or Superwoman and come to the Zoom meetings with their superhero cape on and everything's okay and I'm fine and you're fine. And the business is fine. Now, vulnerability is not about oversharing. It wouldn't have been about, you know, curling up in the fetal position in the corner and saying, I don't know what we're gonna do. But leaders that were vulnerable in talking about some of the challenges they had encouraged vulnerability on their team. And if you don't have a team that's vulnerable, you don't know what's going on within your team, people need help and they fear asking for it. People made a mistake and they fear fessing up to it. One of the best exercises of building that the kind of muscles around vulnerability is something I mentioned in the, in, in talking about the previous, you know, attitude of coachability is this idea of doing a peer accountability exercise. When I do this peer accountability exercise, which again is about leaders sitting around in a circle and one by one, they give each other feedback, something they do here. Here's something, Mike, here's something you do that helps the team, and I want to thank you for it. Mike, here's something you do that really hurts the team and I wish you'd work on it, or I wish you'd change it, or I wish you stopped doing it. When I, when I. Tell a team that we're about to do that exercise. people shit their pants. You know, people are so fearful about telling the people around them what they need them to change. They're not fearful about thanking people for what they do. That helps the team. But man, they are so fearful of giving people true feedback on what they wanna see them change. And while it's. It could be messy. Every team comes out stronger and when I have my leadership teams do it, and if you're gonna do this exercise, find my episode on the peer accountability exercise.'cause there is a step-by-step approach to it that's really important. But once people go through it, they realize how powerful it was. And being vulnerable isn't as scary as they thought it was gonna be. Teams that are vulnerable, develop real. Trust you could have disagreements. Without drama. Decisions get better. People are more willing to take risks. So what could you do? Well, number one is the leader Model vulnerability. Share a mistake or a personal challenge you share first. If you want others to be vulnerable and honest with you, you have to model it first. Number two, conduct that peer accountability exercise. I've mentioned already a couple of times on this, implement, I don't know, moments. You know, leaders should say it often. If you have a leader that says, I really don't know how to solve this. Praise them for it. Don't always praise leaders that, that think they know all the answers. Praise leaders who admit that they don't know the answers. Do regular check-ins with people. What's one thing you're struggling with is a great question. Rather than just status updates, one of the things that, that I start meetings with my clients with is something I call pulse check questions and one of those pulse check, and I have about 50 pulse check questions in my inventory, but a pulse check question might be something like. What's a challenge that you're really struggling with, right, right now? What's one thing you'd like to be able to move faster on? Ask questions regularly that, that cause people to get a little bit vulnerable in their answers. So let's wrap this up. The whole point of this episode is helping you understand that while there are leadership techniques and leadership team techniques that we talk about all the time that are really important, that attitudes trump techniques every time, whether it's an attitude of positive intent. Whether it's valuing, you know, learning over winning, whether it's coachability or vulnerability, they're all contagious. And they all determine a team's client and a team's culture and a company's culture more than any other set of skills. So, as a next step, I shared a lot with you. Pick one action. Just one action from what you've heard. Try it. See what shifts in you. See what shifts in your team. And if this hits home, if any of this hits home, you may wanna take my Breakthrough Leadership Team assessment. It's at mike-goldman.com/bltassessment and it's a way for you to assess. You and your team. It's meant not only for you to take it for your, but for your peers on the team to take to look at a whole bunch of different characteristics of a leadership team, and it includes some of these attitudes. Go and listen. I have a full podcast episode on Coachability. I have a podcast episode on building vulnerability based trust, one on peer accountability. So take a look at those if you want to go a little deeper. Great teams are not built by accident. They're the result of attitudes we model and reinforce every day. And as I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. I hope I helped you get a little closer there today. Talk to you soon.