188: The Small Team Strategy: How Breaking Into Groups Can Supercharge Your Projects

Well, hey there. Welcome back to the Professional Creative. Today I'm diving into a topic that has transformed how my team and I work on big projects. It's really about the power of working in smaller groups within our larger team. Whether it's designing for Shop Flowery or hosting our conference Immersion Live, or planning for a free event like Pattern Week, breaking our core team into smaller focus groups has been a game changer that I'm excited to break down for you today. So even if you don't have a team, I think that understanding the power of working in small groups, even if they're peers, can be a game changer for you as well. And if you do have a team and you're curious about boosting efficiency and fostering collaboration and managing big projects more effectively, well, this one's for you.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing

the most creative and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

My team is small but mighty. There are 13 of us, including me. About half are full time and half are part time and this does not include our contractors. So we also work with several contractors for different things in the business. But our core team is made up of 13 of us. So let's talk about why small groups work. Why break into smaller groups in the first place? Well, here's what I've learned. When you're tackling really big projects, keeping everyone in the same room or meeting can be overwhelming and honestly counterproductive. So smaller groups help to really sharpen our focus. Everyone knows their specific task or objection. It helps encourage deeper collaboration. Like fewer voices mean more meaningful discussions. Have you ever experienced this? It's like there's a sweet spot in number of people, let's say on a zoom brainstorming call. And to me that's about three to five. Anything more than that and it actually becomes kind of quiet because people feel more intimidated to speak up or they don't want to take everyone's time. And so there's kind of this sweet spot for really meaningful discussions. It also builds trust. I love our small groups on the team because it really fosters closer relationships and stronger friendships among the team and a lot of respect across the teams. If you can imagine, we kind of work, I don't know, sometimes we work in silos and then sometimes we work in two different sides of the business. Kind of the delivery supporting of students and then the public facing like news sharing, marketing side. And so anytime we can cross those teams and let's say, have someone from customer service work with someone on the marketing team, it's really beautiful to see the relationship that blossoms from that. So I'll give you a couple of examples from my own team. The first one is our e commerce shop called Flowery. And we launched this as a soft beta launch in November. Now for this project, we divided into smaller groups for product design, website development and marketing strategy. And each group had its own kind of mini meetings, our own goals and our own timelines. And by the time we brought everything together, we had a really clear vision with well developed pieces. But someone who's working on the marketing strategy doesn't necessarily need to be involved in the product design meetings. And so we kind of break them apart and then come together with one big meeting a week so that we can all get updates, kind of surface level updates on what everybody's doing. The second one is our conference called Immersion Live. This event is massive. It's held in October of every year and it is an enormous undertaking. So by creating smaller task forces like event logistics, speaker coordination and the attendee experience, we really work to avoid bottlenecks and also empower each group to take ownership of their own part. I think that that's probably one of the biggest gifts of smaller groups is that you can really give ownership of different areas to people. Meaning when it's everybody's responsibility, it's no one's. If you are a mom, probably know exactly what I'm talking about. I feel like the bigger the group, like the more adults, sometimes it ends up being like actually the least safe situation for the kids because everyone assumes that everyone else is watching the kids. And so when it's a smaller group, let's say, you know, four adults and six kids, well, the adults are all over it, they have ownership of watching the kids, right? But when it's 20 adults and something like 35 kids. It's a different story. So it's kind of the same on the team. Tools and techniques. So I want to dive in and discuss two specific frameworks that have really transformed how the team approaches problem solving and project execution. I didn't develop either of these. In fact, I learned them from Dan Martell in his book Buy Back youk Time. Such a great book. So they are the 131 framework, perfect for decision making and empowering your team, and the 108010 model, which is a delegation strategy that ensures efficiency while maintaining control. So let's talk about the One3One framework. It's my favorite answer to when someone brings me a question. If you are a leader or a CEO or a manager of anyone, you've probably been in this situation. Someone comes to you with a problem and they wait for you to solve it. It happens to all of us in both scenarios. I know I've done the same thing on both sides of the coin. But the challenge is that if you're constantly solving every problem yourself, you become a bottleneck for your team. You're training them to lean on you, and decision fatigue is a real thing. And that's where the 131 framework comes in. Now, to be clear, I didn't do this for so long. I didn't have the tool, the 131 tool to use. And so the first iteration of this was when I learned to say, well, what would you do before that? I would just solve it or give my opinion, meaning the team would come to me with a problem or a question and like, of course I have an opinion. Of course I have a way that I would do that. Right? But eventually you need to empower the people who are working for you or with you to use their own thinking strategies. And as soon as you go ahead and share your opinion or how you would do it, you are really robbing them of the invitation to think through it themselves and develop their thinking skills, but also, again, training them to just continually ask you, because of course you have an opinion. So again, the first iteration for this was me responding, well, what would you do? And I started doing this about four or five years ago. And then I developed or I moved in and developed myself into the one through one framework. So here's how it works. One problem. The team member identifies one clear, specific problem that they need help with. There can be no vague descriptions like, well, the website isn't working. Instead it should be. We've identified that users are receiving an error message on the checkout page when they Click place order. So then give me three possible solutions. The team member suggests three possible solutions to the problem. So no more I don't know what to do or what would you do, Right? They must come to you with three possible approaches. So for example, we could 1 investigate if it's the payment processor issue. 2. Check the recent plugin updates that might have caused this. Or 3. Revert to a previous version of the checkout process and then one recommendation. Finally, the team member gives one recommendation based on what they would believe is the best approach. And this builds the decision making confidence into your team while giving you a clear and concise way to weigh in. So for example, they might say, I recommend we start by checking the payment processor as this has caused issues in the past. And then this problem has all of a sudden transformed into like a green check, like a red light or a green light from you. You can give your feedback and weigh in so you're not completely looped out, but it has become a much easier decision for you. So again, that's the one three one. What is the one problem? What are three possible solutions and what is your one recommendation? This works because it significantly reduces the mental load of the leader or the manager. It also forces the team member to think critically and be resourceful and feel more ownership over their role. And then it also makes things faster. It makes for cleaner decision making since you're not sifting through a bunch of random ideas or trying to ideate them all on your own. Anyways. Okay, so recently, here's an example. One of our team members used the 131 approach to tackle an issue with our focus to Flourish class. So the problem is that our old Flourish Planner was still being mentioned in the course content, but it's no longer available. So rather than just telling me like hey, we have a problem, she did the one three one and I loved it. So one problem. The Flourish Planner is referenced in the Focus to Flourish course, but it's no longer available and it's confusing students. Three possible solutions. Rerecord the affected course segments. Add a written disclaimer at the beginning of the course, or 3 remove or blur the mention of the Flourish Planner in post production or and then the recommendation. Her suggestion was to add a clear written disclaimer at the start of the course content, which was simple, fast and effective, but then re record it as soon as possible. It was great. I didn't have to spend 30 minutes brainstorming, I just gave the thumbs up. Done. The problem was solved faster than if I'd started from scratch. And so we've already done all of this. We added the disclaimer and then I just re recorded this course. It was put kind of on my docket, not as an urgent request, but something to do next time I was recording. And we are about to move it into post editing and release the new version. So it worked really, really well. And I can't tell you from a leader perspective, like if you report to someone and you're listening to this, this is the fastest way to just be their favorite person. If you reduce their cognitive load. If you have solutions, if you come with solutions and not just problems, you are going to be just such a gift to your leader or your manager.

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Okay, so the next One is the 108010 model. And I'm sure you've heard of this before. Sometimes we laugh and we're like, I think that was more like 8,75,15

that

didn't even add up to 100. Don't check my math. So let's just get real. I think delegation is so incredibly hard. And as the creative entrepreneur, your work is incredibly personal. It's your baby. So handing over projects to someone 100% can feel like giving away a part of your soul. I get it. I feel the same way. But if you don't delegate, you'll never be able to grow, and you'll be spending too much of your time outside of your zone of genius. So that's where the 108010 model comes in. This approach lets you stay involved in the most critical parts of the process, but remove yourself in the middle and empower your team to take ownership. So here's how it works. The first 10% is the vision. So at the beginning of a project, you're right there with your team, or maybe you're solo, and you're shaping the vision. You're setting the tone, you're establishing the expectations. This is where you make sure everyone understands the project's purpose, the goals, the scope. It's like the opening scene of a movie. This is where the story is set, the characters are introduced, and the stakes are made clear. During this 10%, you should define the big picture and the ultimate goal, the end result. You should share any past references, materials, or lessons learned from other similar projects. And you should clarify roles, responsibilities, and deadlines. Then the middle 80%, which is kind of the execution part, is independent. Here's the magic. It's not you. Once the vision is clear, you step away. And the 80% of the project right there in the middle is done by someone else or a team of other people. It's their time to take charge, make decisions, solve problems. And as a leader, this is when you stay out of the weeds. What this looks like in practice is no more micromanaging, no checking in every 10 minutes. You trust your team to deliver based on the initial 10% vision that you set. Then you get to the final 10. The final 10% is, let's call it your fairy dust. That sprinkle that only you have. Once the work is done, it comes back to you to sprinkle on your fairy dust. This is where you get to add your magic to. You're not redoing or overworking or overdoing anything, and that's crucial. You're simply reviewing and adding that final layer of polish, saying the things that you would say only in the way that you would say them, or tweaking the design exactly how you would have it. At this point, you should review, not redo. If it requires an entire redo, you've got to go all the way back to the beginning and see where it went wrong. And spoiler alert, it's your fault if the whole project went wrong. It's because your first 10% didn't do the job. That's my take. If you haven't read Extreme Ownership by Jocko, we'll link. You'll understand. Everything's always your fault. You've got to take extreme ownership. So if you set your team up right in the first 10%, you won't be redoing everything. Okay, so avoid redoing the whole project. Something that might be helpful is if it's not exactly how you would do it, ask yourself, but is it wrong? And it might be wrong. And if it is wrong, then you've got to kind of go back and correct it. But if it's just different, not wrong, but it's just different, maybe it's okay to let it go. If you find yourself redoing something went wrong in the first 10%, go ahead and now start to add your 10%. That wow factor. Maybe it's an extra flourish or a personal note or an aesthetic upgrade that you could add, or that one photo that you forgot about. Then provide constructive feedback for the future. If something didn't meet your expectations, then explain how and why so that the mistake is never made again and your team can really learn from it. This works because you get to maintain creative control and add your finishing touch with without losing control, your team feels empowered, they get to work independently. This gives them that intrapreneurship level of ownership and your final product still feels authentic and completely aligned with your vision. So here's a real life example. Earlier this month I hosted Pattern Week and if you were there, you know it was a pretty big event with a ton of moving parts. And here's how we made it happen. It started with me and Jodi, our marketing director. We sat down together to hash out all the big picture details. We made decisions on the dates, the platform we'd use to host it, and we outlined the key elements that absolutely needed to be in place for it to feel on brand and seamless and impactful. Then we mapped out the vision. This was the first 10%. Then we handed it off to the team to take it from there. This is the magic of that 108010 model. The team took ownership of the middle 80% and I stayed out of it. They took charge of tasks like writing the copy, building out the landing pages, handling the technical logistics for hosting the event, and even figuring out the best place for us to build community. Throughout Pattern Week, they had ownership, they had clarity, and most importantly, they had my trust. I wasn't hovering over them every single step of the way. Then once it was all together, I came back in for the final 10%. This is where I got to add my final touch. I tweaked the messaging, I refined the visuals, and I just made sure everything aligned with our brand and felt super cohesive. I call this the fairy dust phase because it's where I get to sprinkle in that little bit of magic and that touch that elevates everything from good to great. And that is yours. You, as the entrepreneur, are the person who has that touch that you have to put as the last 10%. And that's the beauty of the 1080, 10. I didn't have to be involved in every minute detail, build out, or make every tech decision. Instead, I got to focus on the parts that only I could do. And that's in my zone of genius. And for my team, it gave them the chance to step into leadership and make decisions and have complete ownership over their roles as well. It's a win win for everyone. So if you're constantly feeling like you are the one making every single decision in your business, I promise you're not alone and this model will change your life. Start with the first 10, let your team do the 80 and then step back until it's time to do the final 10 to bring it all home. If you want your team to thrive, you've got to step back, but not completely break into smaller groups. For BIG projects, the One3One framework teaches your team how to bring you fully formed ideas, not just raw problems. And the 108010 model allows you to stay creative while giving your team space to lead and making sure that you always feel like you are fully enveloped in the projects at hand. So here's some questions for yourself. Are you solving too many of your team's problems? Are you too involved in every project from start to finish? If the answer is yes to either of those, try one of these frameworks or both of them and tell your team about them as well so that they know it's coming. You'll feel lighter, your team will feel stronger, and your projects will be better. In fact, have them listen to this episode so that they can really understand what an impact this is going to make. My friends. Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you.