Raise the standard

So when you think of the best teams that you've either led or been part of, are there any consistent traits that you recognize that underpin that high performance?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think there is only one.

And for me, that is trust.

You know, especially in a lot of the teams that I've worked where we're working with quite senior specialists.

You don't need to know everything about the job yourself.

They're in their role because they have this degree of specialism.

So when you're managing high performing teams or creating high performing teams of specialists in particular, it's really important that you have an element of trust.

So what I mean by that is that trust allows for a sort of degree of psychological safety.

You know, they're there, they're employed to do a job.

They've passed the interview process, they've passed a probationary period.

So we assume they can do the job from a skills perspective.

But in order to sort of unite a team, there has to be an element of trust.

So to allow for a degree of like taking risks, to be able to identify new ways of working to learn from each other and to work collaboratively.

So for me, I would take trust over sort of skills any day of the week.

I wouldn't disagree.

But I'm curious, how do you build or create a culture of trust? Because you rightly said you've got to trust that the people in the trenches with you can do their job.

But how would you go about or how have you gone about building a culture of trust?

Yeah, it's a hard one because I think, again, it's almost an overused term, trust, right? It's something that quite often sits on those corporate posters of our key values and our words.

But actually what that means in reality, I think, is very different to all the individuals.

So for me, it's always been about trust.

having really open and frank, honest conversations with your team about them individually.

So what does success look like for them? And what do they need from you in order to do the job to the best of their ability? And those answers will be very different for every individual, especially if you've got a team of mixed skill or mixed experience.

So I think it starts with a real good understanding of the individual that's in your team.

Why do they turn up for work? What is their driver? Are they motivated by money or is it about flexibly working around their family? And what does a good job look like to them? If you don't understand those things, I think you can't.