Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan on Building Great Teams

[Music] hi Shannon Waller here and welcome to inside strategic coach with Dan Sullivan Dan today we're going to talk about one of my very favorite topics which is how to build great teams you know we get comments all the time of from our clients where do you find such great team members and you kind of joke sometimes we be grow them on trees which is not the case but let's talk about that because great team members is something we definitely have we take great pride in a lot of our team members stay for a long time what are some of your thoughts about how to put together and build a great team yeah well there's a lot of Coach tools that support having a great team and number one is what's the person's unique ability I mean I'm not in on the hiring process at strategic coach as a matter of fact I think our Podcast manager may be one of the certainly someone coming into the company from other places that was the best example recently but what I try to do is I'll answer for myself and then what I think is the general philosophy of the company is that we have things that have to be done okay and there's ways of testing whether this is going to fall into that person's one competency whether they're actually good at that and the second thing was is this the type of activity that they would do well so you have to do that I think probably the first six months it's not too much different from any other company except that we start them off differently and the first thing we start them off with is that we have certain mindsets that we have to take into account and that we just want them to show up and we want their full energy just to be for what they're doing when they get up so what we're going to create is a very positive environment for them where they don't have to defend themselves so you're not going to have to be defending and we have one starting point which is unique abilities so right from the beginning we want to find out what it is that you love doing and what is it that you're the best at loving doing it and are you good at Teamwork with other people's unique ability so I think right from the start we do differently that everybody's on their own unique growth path in terms of who they are and the kind of work that matches up best with them and we don't really know that real clearly and they don't really know it really clearly until they get you know certain amount of time and it might vary from one person to the rest but I think that's the main thing you know someone once asked me if you had to give up everything that we teach that we coach entrepreneurs on and the number one thing that you would hold on to how you form the company it would be unique ability and unique ability teamwork and once people know what they love doing and we've got them placed so that's what they can continually expand the time at work doing what they love doing and they keep getting better at better at and they get really good teamwork you don't really have to manage them you don't have to monit them you don't have to motivate them okay and better yet you don't have to fire them I would say that's it and so right from the beginning we're investing in who they are as an individual and we're encouraging great teamwork with other people and there's no need for politics yes or drama especially interpersonal politics not so much you know the way most people think about politics but everything is positive we put the emphasis on positive we put the emphasis if something doesn't work probably the system was lacking for it not the individual was at fault there was something in the teamwork there was something in the systematic handoff from one person to another so it's not a blaming culture not a blaming culture it's a winning culture or a learning culture yes I love that Dan what you're making me think of right now is our four core values which has the acronym page so it's positive and collaborative teamwork to be alert curious responsive and resourceful that's the a the third one is to get results we are here for a purpose and a reason that's measured by results and the last which is I know is very near and dear to your heart which is really to provide an excellent first class experience and we take great pride in doing that and being very hospitable so positive and collaborative teamwork being alert curious responsive and resourceful getting results and then finally excellent first class experience and that's part of what we educate people on if that's not something that's near and dear to their heart or not in align with with their values were not a great fit but if they are this is somewhere where they get to expand on and contribute their own uniqueness yeah and along with that Shannon I mean we talk about the internal culture but it also has to do with with what we actually do as a business and who we do it for say more about that well our entire clientele are entrepreneurs yep second thing is that they're successful talented ambitious entrepreneurs okay and it's above a certain income level so right now it's 200,000 you know in US and Canada it's $200,000 okay so they have to be successful already before they come into the program and they're very very positive people with maybe some negative quirks that have to be negotiated with as we go along and they're very appreciative of the staff they're very very interested in how we seem to have uniformly very very helpful and very positive staff they're very interested in that so there's a sort of a reciprocal thing is that they're building companies and one of the key things for them is to get great people in their companies so they learn what's in the formal program of strategic coach we have all these Thinking Tools for them but the big thing is they're watching us very keenly how we put the company together and how it keeps growing and they've seen us grow I mean we started in the early years you know 1989 1990 we could have a company a meeting in a booth of a restaurant and we did oh we had a Christmas party I think it was you earli years we had a Christmas everybody fit in the same booth now we're 130 now we're in three countries now we're in four separate Workshop centers so they've watched us grow and a lot of them are with us for many years clients are with us for 15 20 25 years but what they're noticing our staff members are also with us 15 20 25 years you're a good example you're in year 33 I think as we're doing the podcast so I think they're very observant they're watching what we're presenting front stage but they're watching how we operate backstage and they're very very appreciative of the kind of people that we have inside of our company and that gets communicated to our staff okay and you know a lot of them are young they join the company and a lot of them have been through the educational system where there's a definite negative attitude towards the business world you know I don't care which country the UK Canada the educational system is generally negative towards business negative towards people who are really successful business people and they develop an image and of course they watch movies they watch TV and the business people are generally pictured as villainous the bad gu is usually a business person une ethical greedy Crooks take advantage of others all the things yeah madly driven don't care about people and a lot of our team members not everybody but almost all of our team members are directly in contact on a personto person level with our entrepreneurs and so they're getting a lot of appreciation back from our customers and as a matter of fact we have a rule if there's ever a Fallout between one of our team members and a you know an entrepreneurial customer and we've had situations not a lot if there's ever um collision and we get to the bottom of it you're much more likely to be fired than our staff and we let our staff know that that we're going to take your side if there's any Collision it may be a misunderstanding but it may be wrong behavior on the of the entrepreneurs so we always tell them that you don't have to put up with bad behavior by our customers yeah I mean you know I'm high up in the organization and I'm the head coach and I'm the person so I've never been badly treated by any of our entrepreneurs in 35 years I've not been badly treated but our team members have been badly treated we tell them the moment you get bad treatment from the entrepreneurs you tell us and we'll take your side but if you let it go on and on and you don't tell us you're making our job very difficult and you've said before Dan that that creates an incredible sense of safety for your team and I think that's a really astute perspective because a lot of entrepreneurs haven't been an employee or team member forever if ever but you kind of get what's important uh to a team member and being safe is a psychological safety is measure Meed well they can't be at their best if they don't feel safe exactly there's one other direction I'd like to go on and this is something that you've said before and that is you have to be someone that great people want to work with can you talk to that a little bit well it comes up and we see this early in the program where people are just in often cases haven't been successful at growing teams yeah or the other thing they're moving from being a sort of self-employed entrepreneur I mean they can be making a lot of money they can be making a half million but they've never really had much more than a secretary a series of secretaries usually which they call secretaries so they say well in my area you can't find great people they'll name geographic area and I said well the great people are there they're just not looking for you if you want great team members you got to be a great entrepreneur and that also includes being a great person what great coaching Dan and what specifically do you advise people to pay attention to to be a great entrepreneur well what are great team members looking for yeah see they're buyers too I mean you consider you know that you're hiring someone you're the buyer but in today's world you know a lot of our entrepreneurs are from the boomer generation I'm ahead of that I was born to two years before the Boomers but the boomer generation they're starting to get elderly now I think the last baby boomer technically crosses 65 in 2028 and the other Generations you know the employer was always the buyer and I says more and more in the marketplace the person you want to hire is a buyer too and they're getting more picky about where they go and team members are looking for two things it's it's a meaning ful business in other words from their perspective you're doing good in the world and the second thing is do you invest in me when I join do you really make investments of time and training correct testing to see that I line up with the things just a whole environment there so I think that the criteria that people in the marketplace have for going to work for someone and the thing is that the employer generation has a bigger population than the employee generation we don't call them employees we call them team members because employer sounds a lot like corporations and we're not a corporation we're an entrepreneurial company and all of our clients are entrepreneurs and you're not corporates and for the most part they're not managers yes very the entrepreneurs what they are is innovators what they are is really great marketers they're really great salespeople and learning how to manage has never really been high on the list of things they hire managers you know they're leaders but they're not managers okay so true so if you're hiring and you don't have a bigger future yourself as an entrepreneur great team members who want a bigger future aren't interested being with someone who doesn't have any future Dan your two points about what people are looking for and that they're also the is so spoton in my experience so as someone who's passionate about teamwork and it's funny your second point do you invest in me literally my last team success podcast was the value of investing in your team I actually said that that's the title it's going up shortly but it's so true because it can look like wasted time they're not doing their job you know all this other stuff and today we just happened to have a fabulous event this morning where we invest heavily in our team in terms of their connection with one another their future to our goals their contribution their own creativity eliminating friction and drag all the things you know half a day and that's not a small investment with the 75 people in the room but that's going to pay off in spad and we do see it as an investment not a cost again there's a mindset there if you're hiring team members and you are treating them as a cost versus an investment you are never going to get a good return I think I think that that distinction between am I considered a cost or an investment is immediately communicated when you first you know someone is just applying for a job I think they can pick up right off the bat am I going to be seen as a cost or as an investment doesn't matter what kind of words you use you're going to communicate your mindset yeah and it's interesting Dan it's one of those ones where people just have to really get it I mean you've been coaching this mindset forever but it is a mental shift for some people who've always seen people on one side of the you know income statement you know their cost their an expense but to really treat them as an investment means like any investment you put things into it so that it will grow and people are such a phenomenal give you such a phenomenal return you're someone who's really great at doing that in my experience you provide Direction you provide meaningful work you give clarity about what you're looking for and then you let people figure out their own way to do that and if they need training or education or learning to accomplish it you're like great go do that I mean that's why it's so much fun to be in teamwork with you yeah well the big thing is as much as possible I want to blueprint their path in the company so that they'll succeed I'm only interested in people being successful what they're doing individually what they're doing in teamwork I want the teams to succeed and you build from the bottom I mean you have success for the company but it's really the culmination of the investing in every team member okay and getting them into great teamwork with each other the Top Line takes care of itself if you organically grow where there's just level after level of excitement about their work they love their work they love working together they love the projects they working on success is just guaranteed from that but I think the other thing is where you're looking at your revenues and your profitability and you're working backwards and I want to get there with as little cost as possible I think that doesn't attract great team members yeah because the team memb is then a commodity you're going to look to swap them out with someone who's cheaper and less EXP experience because you think that's going to pay off better you're not going to invest in long-term people in terms of longevity our company is well I'm sure there's maybe a few others but I think it's Unique exactly good people don't leave right and it's come amazing I mean I haven't seen the update on it for about six months but easily more than half have been more than 10 years we now out of 130 we have 25 who are closing in on 25 or longer years you have seniority you're the furthest distance away from the starting line that would be true versus the oldest that would be without any thought in Mind of a Finish Line no and also with enormous amount of freedom and Trust which is incredibly enjoyable we were chatting about this before but it's about creating an environment and we've done that in a previous podcast where people can show up as great and certain people are right fit for a company and certain people are not that's cool but there's not a lot of barriers to being great here which I think is a key part of it and the big thing is I want to be freed up to do what I'm really great at so you know often times we'll have a conversation someone's talking about getting a team member and let's say you know it's 50,000 a year and I'm just talking about present Marketplace and they said well well 50,000 is a lot and I said I don't know how you pay them but you don't have to pay it all UPF front I've never seen a situation where you're paying a new team member upfront the entire first year salary right and I said usually it's 26 Investments that you have to make okay so how long is it down the road before you know you've made a good investment you know the employment legal system in all three countries that we operate is that there's three months of no fault that you can make up your mind well you know that's six pay periods the other thing is if it's 50,000 a cost you'll probably be disappointed because you're always saying you know can't you work harder can't you work longer for the 50,000 but if you look at the 50,000 as an investment it's actually not an investment in the person it's an investment in yourself that you're to get freed up if you pay this person 50,000 if you can't do four or five times more valuable work yourself you're the cost I love that yeah you're paying 50,000 for you not to get any better it's probably a cost but mine is an investment I don't see anything that we pay our team members as a cost it's an investment and the best way to get the return on investment is have them every day do what they love doing and do it continually better and then expand and multiply what they do with great teamwork with other people who love what they're doing and they keep getting better and the team gets better all the team members get better that's worth investing in it sure is Dan I want to focus in on the teamwork part because unique ability a lot of people can wrap their heads around that it's me doing what I love to do and do best you know has an impact all that sort of thing but the success criteria for being a coach and being successful a coach is that you are really good at working with other people and I think that's a shift in mindset because that's not really a focus in I'm going to say other types of businesses a focus for you has been great teamwork and I love being in teamwork with you so let's talk about that and why that's so critical because you can have unique abilities but if they're not great teamwork with other people it still doesn't work yeah well first of all I don't like doing everything and this is our 35th year of the company and I would say right now day to day week to week quarter to quarter over the whole year I'm 95% in my zone of just doing activities that I love doing first year I might have been 30% yeah in the zone of what I like doing and all the investment and team members has every year freed me up and then what we do is we invest in people who free up our people I don't want you doing anything that you don't love doing and I'm really good at it and I don't want anybody in the company to be in that for long there's a small example that I want to share Dad it's kind of funny so we were doing a recording in this case it was for a book and I was hitting record which is not hard to do on Zoom but then I had a little panic attack because I couldn't figure out where the heck the recording went and I was like oh my gosh I can't do this what's wrong with me all these things I did find it by the way it wasn't gone I had just filed it which was the problem I should have just left it on my desktop and your thing was oh we need to get another team member here you shouldn't be doing this and then we're work with Margot which has been so dreamy and so much fun and added so we went from two to three which I call a Triad teamwork Triad and it just made the whole process so much easier all I have to remember to do is make her co-host and she takes care of all of those details I take care of the interviewing you take care of the content she takes care of the recording so that one simple little thing where you freed me up not from anything super hard or complicated but it was still an irritant and still something that could go Ary was just a great example of just what you're talking about so that I could be even better at what I need to be better at so thank you for that by the way yeah and I would say this there's a deal that we do that isn't necessarily formal but if it's working for us and it's working for them there's kind of a deal there that their life outside the company may not be entirely happy and we ask them not to bring that unhappiness into a happy Zone we say look at it this way there's going to be a part of your life no matter how unhappy the rest of your life is there's a place where 8 hours of 220 days where you can be in a totally positive Zone but please don't bring the unhappy stuff into the space what you'll see is that this happy spot that you get with us will actually expand into the outside world you'll start developing standards about who you want to be around side but we don't want you to bring the outside world inside the company and that is a good deal it's a really good deal and I think it gives people I mean anyone with a lot of young kids were like thank God it's Monday is often the feeling because here's where in my case people actually do what I ask them to do rather than no we know what to expect from people we know that they're going to do it then we know they're going to love it we know they're Colby and their Clifton strength and their print are all match for what they're doing and it's such I'm going to say dreamy but it's such a gift to work with other people who love to do what they do as much as I love to do what I do and those things are very very different so yeah it's a little Oasis no matter what else is going on not only in your own personal world but just the world in general there's a lot of negative news out there and when you know that when you're coming into strategic coach it's going to be positive it's going to be purposeful it's going to be productive and profitable that's pretty Feeling Again is that Oasis from everything else it kind of comes down to Babs and me because that's the kind of personal life we have outside the company I mean we're we've led a very very positive life and we're suited to each other and it's not a relationship we've ever had to work at it was just a relationship that always worked and I don't come to work to have it be different right nice yeah and I would say the other thing is that I think half the impact that we make on our entrepreneurs is that we're setting a model of how they would like to have their company to be but have never been around a good model and so they come in and uh there's the official part of the program you know the Thinking Tools you know that we create for them and that whole program is a vast universe expanding Universe of entrepreneurial Thinking Tools but I've always noticed and I've noticed more probably since Co was actually forcing everybody to operate virtually but certainly since they came back and we're back in the environment again there's a keen interest in how we put together the company we did we don't realize sometimes just what an impact our example is for how we run the company more so than what takes place in the workshops I like and what takes place in the workshops is also an example of how we operate because they'll run into a dozen team members in the course of a workshop and then they're all upbeat they're all responsive they're all helpful yeah like the foods there the workbooks are beautiful they have the right I don't think you can coer people to be that way no no and we genuinely like and enjoy our clients we're very excited when we see them Dan I want to give a shout out to the latest book which is everyone and everything grows the extraordinary thinking tool culture of strategic Cod so if anyone wants to know what happens on the backstage this is it and you've done just a fabulous job of kind of pulling out the key elements including no defense budget yeah I was certainly part of the team that put that book together yes you were as was I you've done such a great job of explaining our team success in that book so I think it's fun because based on who not and it's great to find your who's but there's a lot of depth to that how do you work together who are you looking for who do you need to be which is what you've spoken to today I think you have to be someone that great who's want to work with and you need to be that as an entrepreneur and as a human being and I really appreciate that because I think it's an element of the conversation that's usually kind of Forgotten yeah the question that you asked to start the podcast is one that I posed where I was invited by one of the other coaches to come in and talk to you know it a workshop of people who were early in the program I think a year or two years into the program and I just came in for 15 20 minutes and all the questions were about hiring and a lot of people don't realize that the generations have gotten progressively smaller okay the thing about the baby boom generation they actually had a lot of children but not as many as the Baby Boomers and then the baby Boomers had children and they're not as much as that generation so the generations have gotten smaller we're in the UK we're in Canada and we're in the United States and those are immigration countries they have a lot of immigration so you can offset birth rates through immigration I think that the United States basically all those who were part of the British tradition the UK itself Canada the United States Australia in New Zealand there's always this immigration way of making up for you know that you didn't have sufficient birth rates yeah but the big thing is that where they're scarce they get Chooser yes yeah you have to be good buyer that you have a total set of Standards who gets to work at your company but they have a set of Standards too about what kind of company they would be willing to work for so there's been a real shift in the marketplace and this is affected by political issues and economic issues cultural issues there wasn't that way for all time and then has suddenly shifted it's been shifting continuously but it has to do with supply and demand okay and it also has to do with the educational system I think as a general statement has become increasingly negative towards the business world so people come in with attitudes first of all if someone has an attitude of negativity towards business and towards you as a business person it's easy decision to make because you're not going to allow that into your environment mainly I'm looking for mindset I'm really looking for mindset mindsets number one and then willingness to learn which is another mindset and then and they got to be smart enough to be able to master new things but my feeling is I'm always looking for a mindset I think more and more the people who are young and they want to become a team member they're looking for a mindset too in a way that they never did before oh Dan I just had an Insight from what you said we talk a lot and I talk about this in the team success handbook and team success podcast is to not have an entitlement attitude but I just realize that can be in Reverse exactly exactly employers have had an entitlement attitude and that's got to go if you're going to be able to attract and retain the best people out there yeah there's a negotiation going on and each must come up to the standards of the other person okay but going back and this was your question that launched the podcast today that the workshop room I was invited in just to come in and visit with them they've heard about Dan so here's Dan so anyway I come in but right off the bat they went for growing a team and putting a company together and they said you seem to have a lot of great people where do you find the great people and I said we're the type of place that someone with that attitude is looking for so don't put too much attention on being acceptable to people in the right place okay because they're actually looking for someone who has standards but the biggest thing they're looking for is that you yourself as a owner have a big future that gives them a lot of room to prosper gives them a lot of room to grow and increasingly be valued for who they are uniquely who they're valuable for so I said if you're not growing if you're not expansive in terms of your own life and your own future they're not looking for you doesn't matter how much you offer because it's not going to last La anyway right yeah so anyway there a bit of a golden rule about that have them do unto you as you would do unto them right all sorts of ways of looking at that but what kind of environment do you as a entrepreneur want to live in I'm a funloving guy you know I'm a enjoy life kind of guy you know I only want people who keep my enjoyment and fun level up well and Dan there's something else that you said is that you want people to succeed you know you want to have fun you want people who contribute to that and you want people to succeed that is an incredibly attractive mindset for any team member who is looking to grow who wants to make a contribution so just that the fact you're not looking for people to fail you're not looking for a cog and a wheel you're actually looking for people to invest in and to help them succeed and grow I mean that just captures it all right there for me yeah just one last thing we have a a team member who's 25 years you know 25 years or so that we both work with closely I interact with her a lot because she's directly involved in my projects she takes on enormous amount of responsibility in the company that's freed me up Kathy Davis is her name has Kathy I want you to realize that I'm giving you a compliment when I'm not with you I'm not thinking about you and she got it you know she she got it I know you're really great at what you do and I know you're doing great things so therefore I don't have to think about what you're doing it's such a profound statement Dan at first it sounds a little bit like what what do you mean you're not thinking about me but imagine the opposite because I've had a situation where got him all the time you have no idea the last sleep that's happened the last hours it's energy energy it's kind terrible and so it's like the highest compliment is the fact that you're not thinking about them because you're a trusted partner you're someone you totally know who's going to get it handled or they're the person that's going to handle it and you don't even have to think about them like how fabulous is that that's unique ability and unability teamwork in action because they're just so good at what they do you don't have to worry about it if you are worrying about them that's actually the problem oh yeah yeah so I love that it's such a fun Twist on what people expect I really really really appreciate your thinking and your mindset I'm going to get the transcript and use it as a template for something on unique ability teamwork your mindset and your attitude has attracted and continues to attract really really great team members with whom I get to work so thank you for my own personal experience but it also provides incredible leadership and direction to others who may have been trained or raised or just fallen into a different way of thinking about it and I think this really helps provide the what and the why and the how for how to do it differently so they can have great team members too so thank you thank you thank you this has been awesome we get together a lot socially Shannon but I want you to know I don't think about you at all when I'm at work highest compliment ever thank you Dan same goes all right thanks so much thank you sh

[Music] hi Shannon Waller here and welcome to inside strategic coach with Dan Sullivan Dan today we&#39;re going to talk about one of my very favorite topics which is how to build great teams you know we get comments all the time of from our clients where do you find such great team members and you kind of joke sometimes we be grow them on trees which is not the case but let&#39;s talk about that because great team members is something we definitely have we take great pride in a lot of our team members stay for a long time what are some of your thoughts about how to put together and build a great team yeah well there&#39;s a lot of Coach tools that support having a great team and number one is what&#39;s the person&#39;s unique ability I mean I&#39;m not in on the hiring process at strategic coach as a matter of fact I think our Podcast manager may be one of the certainly someone coming into the company from other places that was the best example recently but what I try to do is I&#39;ll answer for myself and then what I think is the general philosophy of the company is that we have things that have to be done okay and there&#39;s ways of testing whether this is going to fall into that person&#39;s one competency whether they&#39;re actually good at that and the second thing was is this the type of activity that they would do well so you have to do that I think probably the first six months it&#39;s not too much different from any other company except that we start them off differently and the first thing we start them off with is that we have certain mindsets that we have to take into account and that we just want them to show up and we want their full energy just to be for what they&#39;re doing when they get up so what we&#39;re going to create is a very positive environment for them where they don&#39;t have to defend themselves so you&#39;re not going to have to be defending and we have one starting point which is unique abilities so right from the beginning we want to find out what it is that you love doing and what is it that you&#39;re the best at loving doing it and are you good at Teamwork with other people&#39;s unique ability so I think right from the start we do differently that everybody&#39;s on their own unique growth path in terms of who they are and the kind of work that matches up best with them and we don&#39;t really know that real clearly and they don&#39;t really know it really clearly until they get you know certain amount of time and it might vary from one person to the rest but I think that&#39;s the main thing you know someone once asked me if you had to give up everything that we teach that we coach entrepreneurs on and the number one thing that you would hold on to how you form the company it would be unique ability and unique ability teamwork and once people know what they love doing and we&#39;ve got them placed so that&#39;s what they can continually expand the time at work doing what they love doing and they keep getting better at better at and they get really good teamwork you don&#39;t really have to manage them you don&#39;t have to monit them you don&#39;t have to motivate them okay and better yet you don&#39;t have to fire them I would say that&#39;s it and so right from the beginning we&#39;re investing in who they are as an individual and we&#39;re encouraging great teamwork with other people and there&#39;s no need for politics yes or drama especially interpersonal politics not so much you know the way most people think about politics but everything is positive we put the emphasis on positive we put the emphasis if something doesn&#39;t work probably the system was lacking for it not the individual was at fault there was something in the teamwork there was something in the systematic handoff from one person to another so it&#39;s not a blaming culture not a blaming culture it&#39;s a winning culture or a learning culture yes I love that Dan what you&#39;re making me think of right now is our four core values which has the acronym page so it&#39;s positive and collaborative teamwork to be alert curious responsive and resourceful that&#39;s the a the third one is to get results we are here for a purpose and a reason that&#39;s measured by results and the last which is I know is very near and dear to your heart which is really to provide an excellent first class experience and we take great pride in doing that and being very hospitable so positive and collaborative teamwork being alert curious responsive and resourceful getting results and then finally excellent first class experience and that&#39;s part of what we educate people on if that&#39;s not something that&#39;s near and dear to their heart or not in align with with their values were not a great fit but if they are this is somewhere where they get to expand on and contribute their own uniqueness yeah and along with that Shannon I mean we talk about the internal culture but it also has to do with with what we actually do as a business and who we do it for say more about that well our entire clientele are entrepreneurs yep second thing is that they&#39;re successful talented ambitious entrepreneurs okay and it&#39;s above a certain income level so right now it&#39;s 200,000 you know in US and Canada it&#39;s $200,000 okay so they have to be successful already before they come into the program and they&#39;re very very positive people with maybe some negative quirks that have to be negotiated with as we go along and they&#39;re very appreciative of the staff they&#39;re very very interested in how we seem to have uniformly very very helpful and very positive staff they&#39;re very interested in that so there&#39;s a sort of a reciprocal thing is that they&#39;re building companies and one of the key things for them is to get great people in their companies so they learn what&#39;s in the formal program of strategic coach we have all these Thinking Tools for them but the big thing is they&#39;re watching us very keenly how we put the company together and how it keeps growing and they&#39;ve seen us grow I mean we started in the early years you know 1989 1990 we could have a company a meeting in a booth of a restaurant and we did oh we had a Christmas party I think it was you earli years we had a Christmas everybody fit in the same booth now we&#39;re 130 now we&#39;re in three countries now we&#39;re in four separate Workshop centers so they&#39;ve watched us grow and a lot of them are with us for many years clients are with us for 15 20 25 years but what they&#39;re noticing our staff members are also with us 15 20 25 years you&#39;re a good example you&#39;re in year 33 I think as we&#39;re doing the podcast so I think they&#39;re very observant they&#39;re watching what we&#39;re presenting front stage but they&#39;re watching how we operate backstage and they&#39;re very very appreciative of the kind of people that we have inside of our company and that gets communicated to our staff okay and you know a lot of them are young they join the company and a lot of them have been through the educational system where there&#39;s a definite negative attitude towards the business world you know I don&#39;t care which country the UK Canada the educational system is generally negative towards business negative towards people who are really successful business people and they develop an image and of course they watch movies they watch TV and the business people are generally pictured as villainous the bad gu is usually a business person une ethical greedy Crooks take advantage of others all the things yeah madly driven don&#39;t care about people and a lot of our team members not everybody but almost all of our team members are directly in contact on a personto person level with our entrepreneurs and so they&#39;re getting a lot of appreciation back from our customers and as a matter of fact we have a rule if there&#39;s ever a Fallout between one of our team members and a you know an entrepreneurial customer and we&#39;ve had situations not a lot if there&#39;s ever um collision and we get to the bottom of it you&#39;re much more likely to be fired than our staff and we let our staff know that that we&#39;re going to take your side if there&#39;s any Collision it may be a misunderstanding but it may be wrong behavior on the of the entrepreneurs so we always tell them that you don&#39;t have to put up with bad behavior by our customers yeah I mean you know I&#39;m high up in the organization and I&#39;m the head coach and I&#39;m the person so I&#39;ve never been badly treated by any of our entrepreneurs in 35 years I&#39;ve not been badly treated but our team members have been badly treated we tell them the moment you get bad treatment from the entrepreneurs you tell us and we&#39;ll take your side but if you let it go on and on and you don&#39;t tell us you&#39;re making our job very difficult and you&#39;ve said before Dan that that creates an incredible sense of safety for your team and I think that&#39;s a really astute perspective because a lot of entrepreneurs haven&#39;t been an employee or team member forever if ever but you kind of get what&#39;s important uh to a team member and being safe is a psychological safety is measure Meed well they can&#39;t be at their best if they don&#39;t feel safe exactly there&#39;s one other direction I&#39;d like to go on and this is something that you&#39;ve said before and that is you have to be someone that great people want to work with can you talk to that a little bit well it comes up and we see this early in the program where people are just in often cases haven&#39;t been successful at growing teams yeah or the other thing they&#39;re moving from being a sort of self-employed entrepreneur I mean they can be making a lot of money they can be making a half million but they&#39;ve never really had much more than a secretary a series of secretaries usually which they call secretaries so they say well in my area you can&#39;t find great people they&#39;ll name geographic area and I said well the great people are there they&#39;re just not looking for you if you want great team members you got to be a great entrepreneur and that also includes being a great person what great coaching Dan and what specifically do you advise people to pay attention to to be a great entrepreneur well what are great team members looking for yeah see they&#39;re buyers too I mean you consider you know that you&#39;re hiring someone you&#39;re the buyer but in today&#39;s world you know a lot of our entrepreneurs are from the boomer generation I&#39;m ahead of that I was born to two years before the Boomers but the boomer generation they&#39;re starting to get elderly now I think the last baby boomer technically crosses 65 in 2028 and the other Generations you know the employer was always the buyer and I says more and more in the marketplace the person you want to hire is a buyer too and they&#39;re getting more picky about where they go and team members are looking for two things it&#39;s it&#39;s a meaning ful business in other words from their perspective you&#39;re doing good in the world and the second thing is do you invest in me when I join do you really make investments of time and training correct testing to see that I line up with the things just a whole environment there so I think that the criteria that people in the marketplace have for going to work for someone and the thing is that the employer generation has a bigger population than the employee generation we don&#39;t call them employees we call them team members because employer sounds a lot like corporations and we&#39;re not a corporation we&#39;re an entrepreneurial company and all of our clients are entrepreneurs and you&#39;re not corporates and for the most part they&#39;re not managers yes very the entrepreneurs what they are is innovators what they are is really great marketers they&#39;re really great salespeople and learning how to manage has never really been high on the list of things they hire managers you know they&#39;re leaders but they&#39;re not managers okay so true so if you&#39;re hiring and you don&#39;t have a bigger future yourself as an entrepreneur great team members who want a bigger future aren&#39;t interested being with someone who doesn&#39;t have any future Dan your two points about what people are looking for and that they&#39;re also the is so spoton in my experience so as someone who&#39;s passionate about teamwork and it&#39;s funny your second point do you invest in me literally my last team success podcast was the value of investing in your team I actually said that that&#39;s the title it&#39;s going up shortly but it&#39;s so true because it can look like wasted time they&#39;re not doing their job you know all this other stuff and today we just happened to have a fabulous event this morning where we invest heavily in our team in terms of their connection with one another their future to our goals their contribution their own creativity eliminating friction and drag all the things you know half a day and that&#39;s not a small investment with the 75 people in the room but that&#39;s going to pay off in spad and we do see it as an investment not a cost again there&#39;s a mindset there if you&#39;re hiring team members and you are treating them as a cost versus an investment you are never going to get a good return I think I think that that distinction between am I considered a cost or an investment is immediately communicated when you first you know someone is just applying for a job I think they can pick up right off the bat am I going to be seen as a cost or as an investment doesn&#39;t matter what kind of words you use you&#39;re going to communicate your mindset yeah and it&#39;s interesting Dan it&#39;s one of those ones where people just have to really get it I mean you&#39;ve been coaching this mindset forever but it is a mental shift for some people who&#39;ve always seen people on one side of the you know income statement you know their cost their an expense but to really treat them as an investment means like any investment you put things into it so that it will grow and people are such a phenomenal give you such a phenomenal return you&#39;re someone who&#39;s really great at doing that in my experience you provide Direction you provide meaningful work you give clarity about what you&#39;re looking for and then you let people figure out their own way to do that and if they need training or education or learning to accomplish it you&#39;re like great go do that I mean that&#39;s why it&#39;s so much fun to be in teamwork with you yeah well the big thing is as much as possible I want to blueprint their path in the company so that they&#39;ll succeed I&#39;m only interested in people being successful what they&#39;re doing individually what they&#39;re doing in teamwork I want the teams to succeed and you build from the bottom I mean you have success for the company but it&#39;s really the culmination of the investing in every team member okay and getting them into great teamwork with each other the Top Line takes care of itself if you organically grow where there&#39;s just level after level of excitement about their work they love their work they love working together they love the projects they working on success is just guaranteed from that but I think the other thing is where you&#39;re looking at your revenues and your profitability and you&#39;re working backwards and I want to get there with as little cost as possible I think that doesn&#39;t attract great team members yeah because the team memb is then a commodity you&#39;re going to look to swap them out with someone who&#39;s cheaper and less EXP experience because you think that&#39;s going to pay off better you&#39;re not going to invest in long-term people in terms of longevity our company is well I&#39;m sure there&#39;s maybe a few others but I think it&#39;s Unique exactly good people don&#39;t leave right and it&#39;s come amazing I mean I haven&#39;t seen the update on it for about six months but easily more than half have been more than 10 years we now out of 130 we have 25 who are closing in on 25 or longer years you have seniority you&#39;re the furthest distance away from the starting line that would be true versus the oldest that would be without any thought in Mind of a Finish Line no and also with enormous amount of freedom and Trust which is incredibly enjoyable we were chatting about this before but it&#39;s about creating an environment and we&#39;ve done that in a previous podcast where people can show up as great and certain people are right fit for a company and certain people are not that&#39;s cool but there&#39;s not a lot of barriers to being great here which I think is a key part of it and the big thing is I want to be freed up to do what I&#39;m really great at so you know often times we&#39;ll have a conversation someone&#39;s talking about getting a team member and let&#39;s say you know it&#39;s 50,000 a year and I&#39;m just talking about present Marketplace and they said well well 50,000 is a lot and I said I don&#39;t know how you pay them but you don&#39;t have to pay it all UPF front I&#39;ve never seen a situation where you&#39;re paying a new team member upfront the entire first year salary right and I said usually it&#39;s 26 Investments that you have to make okay so how long is it down the road before you know you&#39;ve made a good investment you know the employment legal system in all three countries that we operate is that there&#39;s three months of no fault that you can make up your mind well you know that&#39;s six pay periods the other thing is if it&#39;s 50,000 a cost you&#39;ll probably be disappointed because you&#39;re always saying you know can&#39;t you work harder can&#39;t you work longer for the 50,000 but if you look at the 50,000 as an investment it&#39;s actually not an investment in the person it&#39;s an investment in yourself that you&#39;re to get freed up if you pay this person 50,000 if you can&#39;t do four or five times more valuable work yourself you&#39;re the cost I love that yeah you&#39;re paying 50,000 for you not to get any better it&#39;s probably a cost but mine is an investment I don&#39;t see anything that we pay our team members as a cost it&#39;s an investment and the best way to get the return on investment is have them every day do what they love doing and do it continually better and then expand and multiply what they do with great teamwork with other people who love what they&#39;re doing and they keep getting better and the team gets better all the team members get better that&#39;s worth investing in it sure is Dan I want to focus in on the teamwork part because unique ability a lot of people can wrap their heads around that it&#39;s me doing what I love to do and do best you know has an impact all that sort of thing but the success criteria for being a coach and being successful a coach is that you are really good at working with other people and I think that&#39;s a shift in mindset because that&#39;s not really a focus in I&#39;m going to say other types of businesses a focus for you has been great teamwork and I love being in teamwork with you so let&#39;s talk about that and why that&#39;s so critical because you can have unique abilities but if they&#39;re not great teamwork with other people it still doesn&#39;t work yeah well first of all I don&#39;t like doing everything and this is our 35th year of the company and I would say right now day to day week to week quarter to quarter over the whole year I&#39;m 95% in my zone of just doing activities that I love doing first year I might have been 30% yeah in the zone of what I like doing and all the investment and team members has every year freed me up and then what we do is we invest in people who free up our people I don&#39;t want you doing anything that you don&#39;t love doing and I&#39;m really good at it and I don&#39;t want anybody in the company to be in that for long there&#39;s a small example that I want to share Dad it&#39;s kind of funny so we were doing a recording in this case it was for a book and I was hitting record which is not hard to do on Zoom but then I had a little panic attack because I couldn&#39;t figure out where the heck the recording went and I was like oh my gosh I can&#39;t do this what&#39;s wrong with me all these things I did find it by the way it wasn&#39;t gone I had just filed it which was the problem I should have just left it on my desktop and your thing was oh we need to get another team member here you shouldn&#39;t be doing this and then we&#39;re work with Margot which has been so dreamy and so much fun and added so we went from two to three which I call a Triad teamwork Triad and it just made the whole process so much easier all I have to remember to do is make her co-host and she takes care of all of those details I take care of the interviewing you take care of the content she takes care of the recording so that one simple little thing where you freed me up not from anything super hard or complicated but it was still an irritant and still something that could go Ary was just a great example of just what you&#39;re talking about so that I could be even better at what I need to be better at so thank you for that by the way yeah and I would say this there&#39;s a deal that we do that isn&#39;t necessarily formal but if it&#39;s working for us and it&#39;s working for them there&#39;s kind of a deal there that their life outside the company may not be entirely happy and we ask them not to bring that unhappiness into a happy Zone we say look at it this way there&#39;s going to be a part of your life no matter how unhappy the rest of your life is there&#39;s a place where 8 hours of 220 days where you can be in a totally positive Zone but please don&#39;t bring the unhappy stuff into the space what you&#39;ll see is that this happy spot that you get with us will actually expand into the outside world you&#39;ll start developing standards about who you want to be around side but we don&#39;t want you to bring the outside world inside the company and that is a good deal it&#39;s a really good deal and I think it gives people I mean anyone with a lot of young kids were like thank God it&#39;s Monday is often the feeling because here&#39;s where in my case people actually do what I ask them to do rather than no we know what to expect from people we know that they&#39;re going to do it then we know they&#39;re going to love it we know they&#39;re Colby and their Clifton strength and their print are all match for what they&#39;re doing and it&#39;s such I&#39;m going to say dreamy but it&#39;s such a gift to work with other people who love to do what they do as much as I love to do what I do and those things are very very different so yeah it&#39;s a little Oasis no matter what else is going on not only in your own personal world but just the world in general there&#39;s a lot of negative news out there and when you know that when you&#39;re coming into strategic coach it&#39;s going to be positive it&#39;s going to be purposeful it&#39;s going to be productive and profitable that&#39;s pretty Feeling Again is that Oasis from everything else it kind of comes down to Babs and me because that&#39;s the kind of personal life we have outside the company I mean we&#39;re we&#39;ve led a very very positive life and we&#39;re suited to each other and it&#39;s not a relationship we&#39;ve ever had to work at it was just a relationship that always worked and I don&#39;t come to work to have it be different right nice yeah and I would say the other thing is that I think half the impact that we make on our entrepreneurs is that we&#39;re setting a model of how they would like to have their company to be but have never been around a good model and so they come in and uh there&#39;s the official part of the program you know the Thinking Tools you know that we create for them and that whole program is a vast universe expanding Universe of entrepreneurial Thinking Tools but I&#39;ve always noticed and I&#39;ve noticed more probably since Co was actually forcing everybody to operate virtually but certainly since they came back and we&#39;re back in the environment again there&#39;s a keen interest in how we put together the company we did we don&#39;t realize sometimes just what an impact our example is for how we run the company more so than what takes place in the workshops I like and what takes place in the workshops is also an example of how we operate because they&#39;ll run into a dozen team members in the course of a workshop and then they&#39;re all upbeat they&#39;re all responsive they&#39;re all helpful yeah like the foods there the workbooks are beautiful they have the right I don&#39;t think you can coer people to be that way no no and we genuinely like and enjoy our clients we&#39;re very excited when we see them Dan I want to give a shout out to the latest book which is everyone and everything grows the extraordinary thinking tool culture of strategic Cod so if anyone wants to know what happens on the backstage this is it and you&#39;ve done just a fabulous job of kind of pulling out the key elements including no defense budget yeah I was certainly part of the team that put that book together yes you were as was I you&#39;ve done such a great job of explaining our team success in that book so I think it&#39;s fun because based on who not and it&#39;s great to find your who&#39;s but there&#39;s a lot of depth to that how do you work together who are you looking for who do you need to be which is what you&#39;ve spoken to today I think you have to be someone that great who&#39;s want to work with and you need to be that as an entrepreneur and as a human being and I really appreciate that because I think it&#39;s an element of the conversation that&#39;s usually kind of Forgotten yeah the question that you asked to start the podcast is one that I posed where I was invited by one of the other coaches to come in and talk to you know it a workshop of people who were early in the program I think a year or two years into the program and I just came in for 15 20 minutes and all the questions were about hiring and a lot of people don&#39;t realize that the generations have gotten progressively smaller okay the thing about the baby boom generation they actually had a lot of children but not as many as the Baby Boomers and then the baby Boomers had children and they&#39;re not as much as that generation so the generations have gotten smaller we&#39;re in the UK we&#39;re in Canada and we&#39;re in the United States and those are immigration countries they have a lot of immigration so you can offset birth rates through immigration I think that the United States basically all those who were part of the British tradition the UK itself Canada the United States Australia in New Zealand there&#39;s always this immigration way of making up for you know that you didn&#39;t have sufficient birth rates yeah but the big thing is that where they&#39;re scarce they get Chooser yes yeah you have to be good buyer that you have a total set of Standards who gets to work at your company but they have a set of Standards too about what kind of company they would be willing to work for so there&#39;s been a real shift in the marketplace and this is affected by political issues and economic issues cultural issues there wasn&#39;t that way for all time and then has suddenly shifted it&#39;s been shifting continuously but it has to do with supply and demand okay and it also has to do with the educational system I think as a general statement has become increasingly negative towards the business world so people come in with attitudes first of all if someone has an attitude of negativity towards business and towards you as a business person it&#39;s easy decision to make because you&#39;re not going to allow that into your environment mainly I&#39;m looking for mindset I&#39;m really looking for mindset mindsets number one and then willingness to learn which is another mindset and then and they got to be smart enough to be able to master new things but my feeling is I&#39;m always looking for a mindset I think more and more the people who are young and they want to become a team member they&#39;re looking for a mindset too in a way that they never did before oh Dan I just had an Insight from what you said we talk a lot and I talk about this in the team success handbook and team success podcast is to not have an entitlement attitude but I just realize that can be in Reverse exactly exactly employers have had an entitlement attitude and that&#39;s got to go if you&#39;re going to be able to attract and retain the best people out there yeah there&#39;s a negotiation going on and each must come up to the standards of the other person okay but going back and this was your question that launched the podcast today that the workshop room I was invited in just to come in and visit with them they&#39;ve heard about Dan so here&#39;s Dan so anyway I come in but right off the bat they went for growing a team and putting a company together and they said you seem to have a lot of great people where do you find the great people and I said we&#39;re the type of place that someone with that attitude is looking for so don&#39;t put too much attention on being acceptable to people in the right place okay because they&#39;re actually looking for someone who has standards but the biggest thing they&#39;re looking for is that you yourself as a owner have a big future that gives them a lot of room to prosper gives them a lot of room to grow and increasingly be valued for who they are uniquely who they&#39;re valuable for so I said if you&#39;re not growing if you&#39;re not expansive in terms of your own life and your own future they&#39;re not looking for you doesn&#39;t matter how much you offer because it&#39;s not going to last La anyway right yeah so anyway there a bit of a golden rule about that have them do unto you as you would do unto them right all sorts of ways of looking at that but what kind of environment do you as a entrepreneur want to live in I&#39;m a funloving guy you know I&#39;m a enjoy life kind of guy you know I only want people who keep my enjoyment and fun level up well and Dan there&#39;s something else that you said is that you want people to succeed you know you want to have fun you want people who contribute to that and you want people to succeed that is an incredibly attractive mindset for any team member who is looking to grow who wants to make a contribution so just that the fact you&#39;re not looking for people to fail you&#39;re not looking for a cog and a wheel you&#39;re actually looking for people to invest in and to help them succeed and grow I mean that just captures it all right there for me yeah just one last thing we have a a team member who&#39;s 25 years you know 25 years or so that we both work with closely I interact with her a lot because she&#39;s directly involved in my projects she takes on enormous amount of responsibility in the company that&#39;s freed me up Kathy Davis is her name has Kathy I want you to realize that I&#39;m giving you a compliment when I&#39;m not with you I&#39;m not thinking about you and she got it you know she she got it I know you&#39;re really great at what you do and I know you&#39;re doing great things so therefore I don&#39;t have to think about what you&#39;re doing it&#39;s such a profound statement Dan at first it sounds a little bit like what what do you mean you&#39;re not thinking about me but imagine the opposite because I&#39;ve had a situation where got him all the time you have no idea the last sleep that&#39;s happened the last hours it&#39;s energy energy it&#39;s kind terrible and so it&#39;s like the highest compliment is the fact that you&#39;re not thinking about them because you&#39;re a trusted partner you&#39;re someone you totally know who&#39;s going to get it handled or they&#39;re the person that&#39;s going to handle it and you don&#39;t even have to think about them like how fabulous is that that&#39;s unique ability and unability teamwork in action because they&#39;re just so good at what they do you don&#39;t have to worry about it if you are worrying about them that&#39;s actually the problem oh yeah yeah so I love that it&#39;s such a fun Twist on what people expect I really really really appreciate your thinking and your mindset I&#39;m going to get the transcript and use it as a template for something on unique ability teamwork your mindset and your attitude has attracted and continues to attract really really great team members with whom I get to work so thank you for my own personal experience but it also provides incredible leadership and direction to others who may have been trained or raised or just fallen into a different way of thinking about it and I think this really helps provide the what and the why and the how for how to do it differently so they can have great team members too so thank you thank you thank you this has been awesome we get together a lot socially Shannon but I want you to know I don&#39;t think about you at all when I&#39;m at work highest compliment ever thank you Dan same goes all right thanks so much thank you sh

Transcript for:Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan on Building Great Teams

Transcript for:
Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan on Building Great Teams