 Hello, welcome to the session, we're going to go ahead and get started. And I just want to, well first I'll introduce the session as they asked me to, how to build a healthy cohesive team and lead them to success. So hopefully you're in the right spot. I want to just assure you no matter what your role is, there's going to be something for you here to learn. But I do want to just get a feel for the room. How many of you guys are currently leading a team? Perfect. You're in the right place. So hopefully no matter how big of a team this is going to really be applicable to you. So I'm just glad that you're here, hopefully you're in the right place. My goal is that there's going to be a lot of tangible practical things that you can take back to your shops and implement. So first I'll just start off by introducing myself, I'm Tracy Barrett, I'm one of the co-founders of a company called Navigate the Journey. We are a strategic planning and leadership development firm. We do a lot of team building, we do a lot of strategic planning, but we specialize in digital agencies. So we're used to your lingo, used to talking the talk with you guys and we really, really love partnering with agencies for a number of reasons, which I'll bring up several of those today. I do have a background in management but also in psychology and strategic planning so you're going to hear a little bit of that woven through the presentation today. Let me just give you a little bit of overview on how the session is going to go so you know what to expect. We are going to talk about where team dynamics fit in the big picture of your agency. We're going to talk about why a healthy team is even important. We're going to talk about what does it take to get a healthy team and how do we get there from there, from here, where you are today, what are some tips and some really practical techniques that you can take back and implement no matter what stage or level that your team is at right now. And then next step questions that I want you to ask yourself and also bring back and ask your team to get you started on the process. So where do team dynamics fit in the grand scheme of things? Navigate the journey of our company. We like to go into agencies and look through three different lenses. So first is the company journey, which is pretty easy to get people to think about. We call it smart performance, where you're going to look at your operations, your strategy, the financials of your agency. And it does take everybody taking a breath, right? You guys are deep into the weeds of your day-to-day activity. And so we're there to kind of pull you out of it. And so is the leadership team and you guys as leaders of your team to have to take a pause and look at the big picture. We also encourage people and you as leaders to think about your own journey. Where are you in your own development and growth as an individual? And for that, it does take some self-awareness. It does take time out to figure out who you are, what your own personal mission and vision is, and how does that fit in with the company, your own core values, and how do your own personal core values fit in with your company core value? And then there's a team journey. And that's primarily what we're going to be talking about today, is how does your team, your team dynamics, your team performance, fit in to the overall big picture? Is your team fulfilled, happy? Is there clarity? Is there high morale? Are there minimal politics? Is it highly productive? And is there low turnover? We want to be in control of our turnover. So sometimes those are great indicators of where we are as a team. So why is any of this important? Why are you here? Why is this important to you? Why are healthy and cohesive teams very, very important to actually profits of a company? I like this quote from a book called The Simpler Way. It's a book on organizational behavior. And it says, what we know about individuals, no matter how rich the details will never give us the ability to predict how they're going to behave as a system once we put them all together, right? Once individuals link together, they become something completely different. Relationships change us, reveal us, evoke more from us. And only when we join with others do our gifts become visible, even to ourselves. And this is really important because we all work in a highly creative environment, right, where our talents and gifts are valued. And we put a lot of stock and weight in that. And what's interesting when you think about this on a psychological standpoint is that when we join together as a healthy and cohesive team, actually those gifts and talents become heightened, which affect our bottom line. So it's really important to remember that healthy teams are one of the most untapped competitive advantages that are out there. At least the healthy team that we're going to be talking about today. So what does this team look like? What type of team am I talking about? This is a graph that's from a book called Wisdom of Teams, which is a great read if you guys are adding to your probably ever-growing stack of books to read. But it takes us from a journey from what a pseudo team is all the way up to a high-performing team. And why a high-performance team is the goal, it's like the gold star pinnacle that we want to reach. And the easiest way to look at it in simplest way is not the prettiest graph, but I thought it would be the simplest way to help you evaluate because I really throughout all of our discussion today want us to think about your own team, to dig deep. So when you look at this and you think about the team that you have back in your agency, where do you fall on the graph? So a pseudo team is just a group of people, come together, complementary skills that come to work, they leave. A potential team also has a bit of fuzzy, not a ton of clarity, but maybe they've discussed a little bit what their common purpose is, what their common goals are, and what the common strategy might be. And then you have a real team, and oftentimes we will see this. A team that has come together, they actually have articulated their common purpose or mission. They have articulated goals, and they are committed to a strategy. They're holding each other actually mutually accountable. Now, this is a tricky little topic I want us to get behind a little bit later, but holding the team mutually accountable for that strategy that they have put together, and then you have the high performance team. So what's the one thing that's missing? Being deeply committed to each other's personal growth and success, right? Not just to their own individual success, but they actually care about their teammate's personal growth and success. This isn't even easy to achieve, but when you can achieve it, this is the competitive advantage that I'm talking about. So why is it so hard to achieve and maintain a healthy team? Well, it takes commitment, and as we talk about a lot in the digital space, this is a fast-paced industry. Things are changing all the time. There's so much that you have to stay on top of, and it's very easy to get stuck in the weeds. And oftentimes, what will happen is that people will make a commitment to saying, hey, we're going to grow as a team. We're going to dig a little deeper as a team. But then it stops there. Maybe they do one or two things. They don't have the discipline to actually carry it through to the end. And it does take that discipline to carry it through to the end. Actually, it can be oftentimes more damaging to a team to keep starting processes and not seeing them through. Because then you start to get that cynic rising up like, here we go again. We're going to try that new thing, but we're not actually going to see it through to the end. Which can be very damaging to the health of a team. So if you're going to commit to this type of growth and development, if you want to take your team to the next level, it's going to take discipline to see it through to the end. To actually be able to take your team to the place that it needs to go. And that's why buy-in is so important, right? So if you've started a lot of processes and you haven't seen it through to the end, it's awfully hard to get that buy-in. And some people, we can be a highly cynical industry, right? And sometimes people's minds go directly to Michael Scott in the office and they think, here we go, team building. We're going to go into the conference room and do a bunch of silly exercises. So getting those cynics to turn around and actually understand the value of really getting the team to that next level. It's going to take buy-in. And it's going to take a lot of courage and persistence to get there. And courage, because this is a very human thing we're going to be talking about. Having that courage to maybe be a little vulnerable, to open ourselves up to self-awareness and growth. To understanding what our blind spots are and giving people space to lean into their strengths does take courage and persistence to get there. But it's worth it. Taking your team, going through some of the exercises that we're talking about, it was worth it. Because you are really going to get behind eliminating the politics that often plague organizations, the confusion that keeps us from moving the needle on things, that lack of clarity that can lead us to be much more productive and profitable. And one of the reasons that we love operating in the digital space is because so many digital agencies are really committed to doing good. They really want to make that connection with their users through what they create and the products and services that they create. And it's amazing. And we're often reminding them to start at home. When you really invest in the people that you work in and you really put that time and energy into the people you work in, you're actually creating great citizens that are coming out of your agencies. So it's worth it on so many levels, not just your bottom line, but that positive impact that you're having to the community around you and for the people that are working with you. And it is really, I say it so often, that leadership leading any size team is such a gift. And if we really look at it like a gift, sometimes it can feel like a burden. Sometimes it's really hard. People problems suck, right? People are humans and there's just so much conflict that can happen that can be exhausting and suck the energy out of us as leaders. But man, leadership is a gift. And if we can get behind it and really have the right mindset when we go into our workplaces, we realize that actually we're doing more than just developing and designing. We're actually having positive impacts on lives. So what does it take? What does it take to have a cohesive and healthy team? The model that I'm gonna keep going back to today is Patrick Lancioni's five dysfunctions of a team. Another great book. Sorry, I just keep mentioning books for you to read. But this is another great model as a leader and getting behind the common dysfunctions that can plague a team. And here are the dysfunctions. Think about your own team and see if this sounds at all familiar. Having an absence of trust so that fear of being vulnerable and going deep, a fear of conflict. Do you have artificial harmony going on in the workplace? A lack of commitment. There's not a full commitment going on in the decisions that you make. The top two are ones that we see most often when we go into digital studios, which is the avoidance of accountability, not holding each other accountable for what we have, the goals that we have set. And an inattention to results, collective results. Oftentimes we'll see a lot of commitment to individual results but not those collective results. So what do we wanna see? We want to see a team that's really focused on building trust, mastering conflict, achieving commitment, embracing accountability, and focusing on results. So I'm gonna just touch on each one of these about trust. So trust is the most important thing. If you really feel like your team is lacking in deep trust, then the whole rest of the model breaks down. And also, we need the entire model. So to be a high-performing team and to have that competitive advantage, you can't just have three of the five and be happy. We really wanna see all five of these working and sync with each other. But trust is the foundation. And that's really what's gonna get you to the next level. So here are some questions for you to think about for your team. Members of teams with an absence of trust. Are they concealing their weaknesses and mistakes from one another? Do they hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback? Do they hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility, their own projects? Do they hold grudges when things go wrong? And do they dread meetings and find reasons to cancel? So what does vulnerability-based trust mean? So here's the question you need to ask yourself if you're really wondering, do I have a deep level of trust on my team? Do the people on your team have the capacity, space, and permission to be open, honest, and human? To acknowledge their strengths and tap into them, do we give them the space? And to be honest about weaknesses and blind spots. That's a big one, right? Because in our design world, dev world, our eye is trained to go to the weakness, to go to the thing that needs to be fixed, right? And that's a good thing, because we want high quality. But oftentimes it creates an environment where people don't feel safe. Safe to admit their mistakes are safe to say, I messed up and I need help, right? So sometimes we can say I messed up, but we can't say I need help. Or we can say I need help, but they won't admit that they've messed up. So we're creating that safe environment for each other to get there. And here what I've listed are two key ingredients that you need to really develop this level of trust. You need integrity and you need empathy. And this really, it comes from the top down. I really put kind of the burden on the leader of the team. Because if you have leaders that don't have integrity and empathy, it's really hard to cultivate that across the team. So you have to lead with integrity and empathy. And integrity is the single most important quality of every part and every section of business, right? You want to have integrity in your contracts and your partnerships with your clients, with your vendors, definitely with your coworkers, right? And a lot of people want to see that within their leaders. So if a person doesn't have an integrity to do what they're gonna say or do what they're gonna say or what they have said. And do the right thing at any cost, especially in the business world. If you're willing to take a hit because of integrity, then it's really hard to be the type of leader that people want to follow, right? You'll always be that leader that people have to follow. But I think the goal is to be the type of leader that people want to follow. And so the word integrity actually comes from the word integer, which means whole. So to be whole and living in that truth and in that integrity. And empathy, really important thing for you as a leader to remember. These are the three questions that your team members think about when they look at you. This is what they're thinking in their head about you. They're thinking, does this person like me, right? Do they really like me? Do they have empathy? Can they put themselves in my shoes? Do they care about me? Can you help me, right? And this all speaks to competence. Like, are you the type of leader that's competent? And somebody that they want to get behind, they trust their decisions. And do I trust you? And that's all about character, right? So remember, especially when it comes to empathy and building trust, that your team members really don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's a very key thing to remember, that you're gonna get a lot further with your teammates, not by boasting about your knowledge or really trying to teach them something first, but by leading with empathy and leading out of that heart of trust. Second is conflict. If you have that firm base of trust, then you can get into a place of what I call healthy conflict, right? So I'm not talking about tension and dissension. We're talking about constructive ideological debate, right? So is there a group thing going on, right? Are there boring meetings happening? This is a really key indicator if you don't have healthy conflict on your team. Are people completely zoning out in your meetings? Is there an environment where there's heavy politics? People feel like they have to kind of really play by the political rules. Do you guys ignore controversial topics, especially as a leader, you wanna skip that, you feel uncomfortable, you just brush it under the carpet? Do you fail to tap into all opinions because you really just wanna get the decision made and move on? And do you wait, is there a lot of time with people wasting time and energy posturing? So if any of those sound even remotely true, you might have an avoidance of conflict, of healthy conflict and conflict can be uncomfortable. Like nobody likes conflict. There's so many books that have been written on having hard conversations and getting through conflict, but it's necessary, right? Bernay Brown has a great quote that says you can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't choose both. So what is it gonna be as you're leading a team? Do you have the courage to kind of push through the conflict and really get your team to where it needs to be? And that's gonna take a high level of truth and humility, right? Speaking the truth, but in a humble way. And that is kind of your combination that you need for conflict. And if you can have healthy debate, then you can get to a level of the commitment that you need. And commitment is we're not looking for a unanimous consensus, right? For commitment, you need clarity around decisions, right? We need buy-in. And so if you are a team that's struggling with that type of buy-in, then you might be a team that has ambiguity about direction and priorities. You often could be watching windows of opportunity close because you're talking about things and analyzing things way too much. Unnecessary delay in making decisions. Lack of confidence because of fear of failure. And that could come from the leader as well. You can see a lack of confidence because the leader is scared to make the decision because they don't want backlash or they're scared there might be failure. You know, that imposter syndrome seeps in where it's like, oh, well if we fail or if we make this decision or if I make the call and something doesn't go right, then they're gonna be able to see that I'm not the leader I should be, right? And oftentimes that can put the team behind. If you find that you're revisiting the same issues and the same discussions over and over again, then you can have this kind of lack of commitment that we're thinking about. So a team that debates and commits is a team that really everybody's voice is heard. Everybody's opinion is given, but then the decision is made and you move on. And I put this on the leader. You have to lead, right? And leading, I'm not talking about managing, I'm talking about leading your team to a point of decision. So you need to hear your employees' voices, but then in the end, it's not you can't sit around and wait for unanimous vote, right? And a full consensus. Somebody's gotta pull the trigger. Somebody's gotta make the decision and move the team forward for good or bad. So that's the type of commitment. And once you've made that decision, you need everybody to buy in. This is what we've committed to. This is the direction we're gonna go and we're gonna move forward. And if you do that, then you can hold each other accountable because then you're able to say like, look, we all agreed with this. I know that maybe it wasn't what you wanted to do, but in the end, we all agreed this was the commitment that we were gonna make. And so we're talking about accountability that's not just coming from the leader. That's when leaders get really burnt out and exhausted. But we need to be training our teams to be holding each other accountable. And that's a new and different type of accountability that you don't often see. So if your team isn't holding each other accountable, you might see that there's resentment amongst team members that hold themselves to a higher standard. You might see that there is an environment that's encouraging mediocrity. Remember that it's not what we preach, it's what we tolerate. So you can stand up as a leader and say whatever you want, but if you're tolerating behavior that doesn't jive with what you've committed to, then that's really the thing that's ruling the day, right? You could be missing deadlines and key deliverables because you're not holding each other accountable. And then there's that undue burden that you feel as a leader. So if you feel pretty tired from carrying that weight, it could very well be because you're not holding each other accountable and you haven't empowered your team to do that and given them permission to hold each other accountable. But the enemy of accountability is ambiguity. So if there are things that are unclear, people aren't sure of the decisions that have been made and those decisions haven't been said over and over again and made clear, then you're killing your opportunity to hold people accountable. There needs to be clarity. And then you can have attention to results. So a great team focuses on results, not just the owner of the CEO or the leader of the team. So if your team is not focusing on results, this is what you might be feeling. There might be, you've stagnated, you're failing to grow. You've stopped defeating your competitors. You're starting to see competitors actually winning projects that you should be winning. You're losing achievement-oriented employees. So how many times are you seeing people that you really love walk out the door? Becoming increasingly siloed or you're finding that people are easily distracted. So what we wanna do is shift from silo thinking to team thinking where we're all focused on team results. So how do we build this team, this healthy team with these behaviors, right? So how do we get all five of these behaviors? So again, we want to start with trust and building trust as the foundation. And one of the things to remember is we really have to get to know each other on a deeper level to build that kind of trust. I always use the example of the social psychology term fundamental attribution, which is, it's kind of a popular idea that people tend to attribute other people's negative behavior to their character, but their own negative behavior, they attribute to the things going on around them or their environment. So for instance, I'm driving to work and somebody cuts me off, I'll say, gosh, what a jerk. But then if I'm driving to work and I cut somebody off, I'm like, oh, I didn't mean to do that. You know, I dropped my phone or I was thinking about something else or you're in my blind spot. I immediately don't think about, call myself a jerk, I start talking about my environment. But if I see somebody cut me off and I know that person, I say, oh, oh, it's Bob, silly Bob, he just cut me off. I'm gonna, you know, so I know him, right? So I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. And that really builds trust is knowing each other on a deeper level. And one of the ways that's really helpful in getting to know each other better at work is purposeful learning. So purposeful learning is when you're bringing your team together and you're learning about each other on a different level. You're learning about strengths, you're learning about how people communicate, gaining a deeper understanding about each other's blind spots. Oftentimes when it comes to communication, we can be kind of two ships passing in the night. So I'm gonna give you, we're gonna do a fun little exercise and that you guys can take back to your teams as well on communication, on how we actually think and how that thinking affects how we process things, okay? So some of you have paper which you can use, but if you have your phone, you can use this too. So I'm gonna ask you six questions. This is called thinking wavelengths. So prepare yourself, don't overthink it. I want you to write down or put in your phone the first number that comes to your head with each question that I ask you, okay? So on a scale of one to 10, write down your relationship to risk. So a one is gonna be somebody who's very risk adverse. Gonna push back, lose sleep over risk. A 10 is gonna embrace risk at the snap of a finger, loves risk, doesn't lose sleep, no big deal. A five somewhere in the middle and you can be any number from one to 10 and think of yourself as a whole. This doesn't just have to be at work, it's just who you are as a person. How do you feel about risk? Okay, got your number? Second number you're gonna write down. On a scale of one to 10, identify your relationship to change, right? So one's gonna resist change. They're gonna tell me all the reasons why things shouldn't change, they don't like change. A 10 loves change. Actually they'll change things even when they shouldn't change things, right? And a five somewhere in between. So write down your number between one and 10. Next is about how many variables, concepts, or ideas that you can have swimming around in your head before you kind of go on tilt. So this isn't multitasking because all the women are like 10. So because we can have a million things. This is ideas or concepts that you can have in any stage of your head. So somebody who's a one would have just maybe a couple fish if the fish were ideas and there was a fishbowl on your head. They maybe have a couple fish swimming around and be happy. A 10 could have a whole school of fish thinking about a million different ideas in their head and be happy. And a five somewhere in between. So then the fourth number you're gonna write down is logic. So a one, to rip off the band aid and go there, you have to push through. And one of the ways that you can do that is really making sure you have structure. And people know what to expect going in. So you have tactical meetings that you might have weekly where you're gonna have issues that you discuss and or identify, discuss and solve and move on. And the leader is gonna make sure a decision is made. And if you can't make a decision because you're missing the right information, you're gonna park it, come back to it next time. But when people start to see like, look, we have an agenda, we're gonna stick to it. This is the process. I know what to expect. You're gonna have more engaged employees. There's nothing that's more frustrating than when you get everybody, especially if you're a remote team, right? It's really hard. You can see everybody check and slack or emailing when you're on a video conference and you're just like, what is happening? If you are really sticking to the time and sticking to the agenda and you're saying to people like, look, this is another area we're gonna hold each other accountable. You're all in or there's gonna be issues. Like we have to be all in in these meetings and those tactical meetings are really important. Strategic meetings, which you can have less frequently, once a month, once a quarter, where you dig deep. You really wanna feel some tension in those meetings. You want there to be debate. You want people giving their opinions. You wanna be arguing about those issues that you need to get out on the table. So you want to make sure that people understand that this is a safe environment. We're gonna allow for this to happen. You as a leader are gonna make sure you're facilitating it properly and it's not gonna be contentious and we're gonna be safe and a safe environment means we're gonna be respectful of each other but we're gonna debate things and it's gonna be okay because we have trust and so we trust each other and we know that we care about each other so we can have these debates. So when you create that environment as a leader, you can let people really enter into these strategic tough conversations we need to have to move the needle and then having offsite working retreats, at least once a year where you're getting the team offsite and you're talking about things like mission and vision and values and goals and you're putting, setting the stage for really holding each other accountable is really, really important. So moving your team beyond that into what you can commit to and that's what we're talking about here, mission, vision and strategy. Hopefully your company, I don't know if some of you are owners or on a leadership team for your agency, if you don't have this nailed down, it's really hard to hold people accountable and really start measuring results. So your mission is your why. The whole start with why, the whole golden circle. This should be as a leader, should be sitting on your desk. This should be we need to figure this out and reevaluate it. So do you know your mission? Do you know your why? That's your filter for everything, your filter for making decisions. It's beautiful. So if this doesn't fit with our mission, we're not gonna do it because it can be shiny and attractive and we might wanna chase after it but it doesn't fit our mission and you need to have that filter especially in this arena of just tons of innovation, tons of like, it's just like the movie up the squirrel. Like there's so many visionaries that work in this industry and they're just chasing the squirrel all the time and you have to like keep yourself focused. This is your formula for focus. It's having a mission, sticking to that why. The visions you're where, where are we going? People wanna know where they're going and then your strategy is how you're gonna get there. So there's a great Harvard Business Review article called Being Happy at Work and there were three things that this research team spent so much time developing the three things that people want at work that make them happy. One was a meaningful vision of the future. The second was a sense of purpose and the third were great relationships. They really, people want solid relationships at work. They want close friends, right? They want people that they can talk to. They wanna sense a purpose. They wanna feel like there's something bigger outside of the world that this isn't all for naught and they want a vision of the future. They wanna know where they're going and the part that they play in that. And then accountability and attention to results. This is what we typically see. We go into a lot of agencies that have great culture, great teams, people get along really well but they just have this fear of holding each other accountable or they don't like measuring results. And oftentimes that's because we're swinging so far from corporate America. Like we hate that world of like really, leaders that are just coming down or heavy management and we don't like all those things that remind us of corporate America and we like being a little bit different but what can happen is we can turn into these sort of passive leaders that just want everybody to be happy and that's not good either, right? We want to have leaders that are strong leaders, leaders that make decisions that are taking us somewhere and in order to get there and move the needle, we do have to hold each other accountable and we have to measure results. And so the best way that I know for that is to have a dashboard, to have a scorecard. Every team needs a scorecard and both my daughters actually play basketball although they're short like I am but I can remember this past season, this scoreboard went out on my daughter's basketball game. I have never seen anything more ridiculous in my life than seeing a bunch of fifth graders freaking out because the scoreboard went out and I would have not probably predicted that but they just couldn't take it. They were just like, what's the score? And then they'd run off the court every time there was a time out, tell us the choice, they just couldn't function without knowing what the score is and that's very much the same as what it's like at work. Your team wants to know what the score is. How are we doing? I wanna be at least the team members you want on your team. The team members that don't care about the score and don't care about how they're performing and don't wanna be held to a certain standard or the team members you need to be thinking about, right? But the team members that really want to achieve and be part of something bigger wanna know what the score is and they want clear goals and clear goals for the company and then clear goals individually. Create a dashboard that has those goals. Think about what the goals are for the company overall. Once you have your vision and your strategy outlined for how you're gonna get to those goals but also think about those personal goals, the clear goals that you're putting together for an individual. Oftentimes in agencies we can see people that will stay in the same position for a while and they can outgrow that position or the position can outgrow them and if you really want to develop your team members and you wanna make sure that they're growing, you're gonna wanna analyze that from time to time. Are people in the right role with the right responsibilities? Are they growing and does it fit where we're going as a company? And for that you do need to evaluate. So lastly, what questions do we need to ask ourselves moving forward? As you guys go back into your world and you start creating again, what are the questions that you can ask of your team and of your company and of the other leaders that you work with? First evaluate your agency. Start through the lens of the company. Does your agency have a clear and compelling mission that the team can get behind or is it fuzzy? Do you have articulated and defined core values that you can measure your team members against? There's nothing like core values to really hold up when you're looking at those performance reviews. Is there clear vision and direction for the agency? And do the members on your team know the part they play in that vision? Are they clear? Do they feel that sense of purpose? Do they know that you want them? You have to say that vision as a leader over and over and over again, at least seven times before somebody hears it. I have yet to go into an agency where somebody on the team says, man, my leader talks way too much about the mission and the vision. The leader, though, thinks they do. Every time they'll say, oh my gosh, I think I just talked about it way too much. So there's that missing gap there. You know, it's too often than not, you're not saying it enough. So does everybody know the strategy? How to achieve the vision and the part they play? So again, my favorite, favorite circle. I want you to take this home. Evaluate your team. So how does your team assess on the five behaviors? You can actually take an assessment. I'll show you a picture of one. And the next slide. Where you can measure, you ask your team a few questions. So the five dysfunctions that we talked about, you can do a survey where you ask several questions on all of these levels and you can get a score for how your team is doing on each level, on trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results and it'll tell you where you're weak. So it's often a little different than what you might guess, all right? So where does the team fall out on personality style? How well are you communicating with each other? Do you have some concrete thinkers that are having a hard time with the abstract thinkers and vice versa? Do you have some behavioral styles that just aren't gelling and you don't know how to get it behind it? You can get behind it, it's possible. So are you clear, cohesive, and productive? Is there collaboration going on? Another issue we see with a lot of teams is that desire to work independently. So there's just a lot of people that really value their independence like creating and working independently and just don't like collaborating. So measuring that, getting behind that, and then are your people having fun? Are their relationships happening? Are they gelling? So this is what results will look like if you do a five behaviors team survey and it's really cool to look at where you might be lacking and where you're doing really well and then understanding what you can get behind and that'll help craft the type of purposeful learning that you need to do. So if you're low on trust, you'd know what kind of exercises to do and so on and so forth, but it's a really handy tool to get behind what you might be missing. And then lastly, as a leader, and you guys, I think almost everybody, raise their hand that they're leading teams, you need to take a breath and a step back at some point and evaluate your own journey. Where are you on your own journey as a leader? Again, because it is such a gift to lead and because whether you know it or not, you're having an impact on every single person that reports up to you or that works on your team. You have to become somebody who's committed to becoming self-aware and being self-aware and going through the process of assessments and really getting behind whether it's a 360 or whether it's just doing an assessment so you can learn more about yourself sometimes can be a scary process. Sometimes it's hard to just ask our team, like, where am I lacking? What am I doing good that adds to the team and what am I doing that's detracting from the team? It's a hard question to ask, but if you really wanna grow as a leader, man, you can gain a lot of respect when you start asking your teammates those types of questions and then becoming better and growing. I mean, my hope is that I'm on my deathbed at whatever age and I'm still growing. I'm never gonna get there, right? So how are we pushing ourselves in that way? Do we really understand our strengths and blind spots? Go on the internet and Google Strength Finders and take a Strength Finders so you're able to articulate and understand what your strengths are and then getting behind those blind spots. Do you have a personal mission and vision for yourself? Oftentimes we just talk about it for companies or organizations or teams but we don't talk about it for ourselves and you can actually think about what's your own personal mission and vision and does it jive with the job that you're at? And do you have personal core values? You know, it's not hard to sit down and kind of scope out like what are the things that mean the most to me? What are the core values and do they match the company that I'm with right now? Is that a right fit for me? Is something rubbing up against my core value? If something really bothers you or a person bothers you it's usually because they're rubbing up against one of your core values. So do you care about the health of the team and do you communicate that way? And are you aware of how others perceive you at work positively or negatively? The last little assessment I'll toss out there is an EQI. Emotional intelligence, you guys have probably heard the phrase it's hot topic right now but man nothing can get behind what your strengths and your blind spots are like understanding how you come out on an emotional intelligence EQI assessment. It is amazing. It looks at five different scales and then there's sub-scales within those composites and you really can get behind how you it's a self assessment. So it's really how you perceive yourself and how others may be perceiving you. And where are you strong and where are you weak? Are you a strong problem solver and very objective but you're kind of lacking in empathy or your interpersonal relationships aren't as strong as they should be and that is a great first step and really self awareness and really going deep as a leader. So if you want information on this you can see me afterwards and I'll tell you how you can have an EQI. So those are the three journeys that and I know it's a lot and you probably feel overwhelmed a little bit as a leader but again I think it's fun. I think it's, team dynamics are amazing and it's kind of, you know, if you want to take a break from the being in the weeds and pull back and look at the big picture. This is a really, really fun and simple way of kind of the checklist of the things that you need to think about. So any questions? Yes. What are the special consideration when leading a team of millennials? Oh yes. Well, millennials are, there's so much written about millennials. One of the first things I like to say because I think that so much has been written and some of it's true and some of it is that us an older generation forget what it was like to be in our 20s. So some of it is simply, you know, just there's more out there, there's more social media and that can be an issue when you're in dated and oftentimes we forget how idealistic we were when we were in our 20s as well. But one of the things that I also have read and researched about and it really speaks to my point about mission and vision and strategy is that millennials want a sense of purpose. They want to feel like they're doing something for the greater good which is fabulous. I think it's amazing. Sometimes it can feel hard to manage because they're always looking for the next thing or they might move on much more quickly than our parents' generation definitely and even more quickly than my generation. But I do feel like if you can get behind crafting a mission and a vision and getting them involved in that, you really are gonna up a millennials engagement and loyalty to you. They're gonna move on until they find that sense of purpose and they'll stay longer with the team that has that. Thank you for the great session. So I have a couple of questions. So by knowing where you stand on the thinking wavelength trend, can a minder can become a finder? Is there a way where you can take some action or by some mentoring you can become and go one way or the other? Typically not. Typically your thinking wavelength is fixed but what I wanna encourage everybody because sometimes people freak out with their number and they're like, oh maybe I shouldn't be doing this or shouldn't be doing that. It's just one facet of who you are as a human being. It's just how you think through things. It's how you sort of think concretely versus abstract. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the end all be all on whether you can lead a big team versus a small team. It does help and really understanding if you are working with, so say you're more of a keeper or a minder and you're working side by side with a conceiver. What it does do is help you understand how to communicate with each other. So whether you're explaining things logically or trying to understand where they're coming from or what you might prefer doing. So it does help with job placement. So sometimes what we find is when we run this on people they are more towards the operational side but they're in a strategic or developmental role and they can't figure out why they just don't like it. This is very eye-opening for them and vice versa. Somebody who's more in an operational role and needs to be more strategic. Sometimes you're gonna, just in a career progression you're gonna start out more of a administrative operational role and you might move up into more of a strategic role and so that just happens with career ladders. But for a lot of people it's eye-opening. Like for a lot of people it's like, this is why I don't want my job. Right, but most of the career ladders are like that like you mentioned, right? I mean very moved from one way to the other. Yeah. And I think that we have to think about that when we're structuring. I mean a lot of agencies are flat organizations. So sometimes we should think about having two different career ladders. Having a ladder for people that are more strategic and abstract in their thinking and developmental and have a path for them to go into leadership or management, but also have a path for those people who really wanna just become experts in their craft. So have two growth paths. Have that path where you're on the path into management or you're on the path to becoming an expert in your craft and both those paths are revered and respected within the agency. Is one really great example of what I've seen some agencies do. Right, and that's quick second question. So as an organization is there need to be maintaining a balance between the minders, keepers or finders? Is there a ratio or something where you need to know once you know as an organization why that this is where your people or team fit in? What's the, are you saying what's the benefit of it or how do you? So is there a ratio that we need to maintain between minders to finders? I don't know if I'd say there's a ratio. I'd say on a leadership team you definitely wanna have more people on the strategic side than you do on further down on the administration side. I would look at that. But as an organization as a whole I like to see people across the spectrum because if you don't have people in each of those categories sometimes it can be hard to get things to move the needle on things. All right, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Anybody else have any other questions? Thank you guys for coming. I really, really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, I just turned it down just because.