Spokes of Success: Building a Balanced Team Dynamic

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor. I'm also known as the Geeky Girl. And today, I get to talk to you about teams. I love being able to put together an amazing team. I've always loved putting people together, selecting people, and helping people to become a better team. It's something that I truly love doing. And I've been doing it for many, many years. I didn't always know what I was doing. That's for sure. Although luckily for me, I did it while I was in corporate. So, I was able to learn a few things along the way. And I was taught some really, really great lessons as I was on a team that was being built as well. So, I was paying attention to the way our team was put together and paying attention to how the company worked. In terms of team building. And so, I used all of that when it became my turn to create an amazing team. And of course, when I left corporate and started to build my own team here at Geeky Girl as well. So, I'm going to let you in on a few things along the way and give you some ideas about why those are so important. A team dynamic is important because we need to rely on each other. If you have one person that does all the work and everybody's just getting a paycheck, There's going to be one person really, really pissed off. A bunch of people are going to be happy, but one person is going to be really upset. If you have a team where there's not a lot of collaboration, everybody's doing their job, but they still have to come to you, you become the hub in that communication, everything has to move through you. Now you might as well not have a team because you're wasting so much time mitigating everything that's going on that you're not getting your own work done. And so it's not helpful for you to have that kind of team. However, the type of team that I feel works the best is when each one of the people on the team, including you, including the team leader become more of a spoke on the wheel rather than somebody being the hub of the wheel. We can all support each other. Think about that tire. Look at a bike tire, for example. All the spokes that are going out from the middle of the hub of that tire. Each one of those spokes actually will bear the weight of the ride on the motor, on the bike. And so each of those spokes are important. Now, you could lose 1 or 2 spokes and the bike will still work okay. But you lose too many of those spokes and things aren't going to be so awesome. So, it's important to make sure that each of the spokes in that wheel are going to be valuable to the entire team. Now, I'm not talking about a huge team. You don't have to have a massive team. Obviously, the visual that I gave you shows a lot of spokes. But the concept is what's important. We want to find the right people and we want to make sure that they're doing the right things inside the company. So, I often say, right bums, right seats. You might have a person on your team who's really, really great. They're amazing. They're a hard worker. But maybe they're not sitting in the right seat. Maybe they need to be moved around. So, some of these things I want you to take into consideration when you're thinking about the dynamics of your team and understanding this team collaboration. And of course, we're going to put a link down below in the show notes for you to look at. We've created a team dynamics quiz for you so that you can take the information that I'm giving you here, but then also take it into that quiz and apply it and see. What can you do in your team to make it more— the dynamics work much better in your team? There are some challenges when it comes to being a neurodiverse business owner or somebody who is an overgiver. Those things tend to go hand in hand a lot. But when you are looking at building a team, there's some pitfalls that happen in terms of collaboration and delegation. Some of that can be that you are in a hire mode. I've seen this a lot where business owners will be like, oh, I need this and I'll hire this. I need this and I hire this. And now you have a team of 10. Everybody's only just doing a little piece and there's a lot of communication that needs to happen in order for those pieces to go. Or you're very much, you maybe hire one person but you micromanage them so much that they can't even get their work done because you're insisting on being the hub rather than a spoke like everybody else. There's other pitfalls that come as well when you're looking at building a team. The best thing that you can do for yourself, and this was a hard lesson. This was a lesson that took a long time for me to learn, and I know that I'm not the only one that this takes a long time for people to learn about. But however, you are not the only one that can do the job. Shocking, right? There are some things in your business that you are the only person that can do. For example, a geeky girl. I'm the only one that can show up here and do this for you right now because I don't have a deepfake of myself to program to make it happen. So here I am. I need to do this part. But when it comes to launching this in other places and to create the content that we do out of what you're, what you're currently invested in right now, I can have some of the team members do those things. So yes, there are some things that only you can do. However, there are also things that you can delegate and it gets tricky. You want to make sure that you're delegating without doing that micromanaging because you're taking away other people's power when you're doing that. So, when you're thinking about putting together a team and thinking about how you want that team to work, part of it is what are the communication styles? How do you like to communicate? What are the things that are going to work well for you in terms of how you communicate to your team members? And how would you like your team members to communicate with others? You do have some reign as to how you want to do this. If you're somebody who needs to have a team that is willing to be on Slack and chatting with you daily. And don't hire somebody who hates Slack, okay? Or make sure that they understand what those are before you move through with the business. There's a lot of different ways that you can make sure that your preferences are included because, of course, it's your business. Make sure that your neurodiverse needs are also being met by your team. And if you have neurodiverse individuals on your team, make sure that you are helping them to meet their needs as well. So this collaboration is really important. I encourage my team members to lean on each other. Just because they have a question doesn't mean to say I'm the only one that can answer it. Another team member might be able to answer it. That's okay too. It doesn't have to be just me. We have processes and SOPs written out as well, or documented, so that they can also refer to those. And if maybe they've forgotten, they asked a friend inside the company and they say, oh yeah, did you check the document out? These are all tools that support the team. So, when we are doing these things, we're delegating, we are allowing people to take ownership of what they're doing. Everybody becomes that spoke on the wheel. We're building trust with each other. That's really important. I want my team to know that I trust them implicitly. They have my trust. I know that they are going to do what they're going to do. That doesn't mean to say that we don't check in on each other. If I need to get something done and I'm waiting for a team member to do their part before I can take over, of course, I'm going to say, hey, how's this thing going? And I am And I expect them to do the same with me as well. If I'm— if they're expected to do something and they're waiting on me, I want them to say, hey, Angela, where is this thing? So that I can then provide that to them. The strategy here is that because we are interdependent on each other the same way the spokes on the hub are, or on this, on the wheel are, this interdependence allows us to actually move quicker with what needs to happen. We also understand what each other's roles are inside the business. If somebody's sick, somebody else might be able to pick up some of the other things that are happening. If there's a holiday that happens once in a while, we can all work with each other to help each other get what needs to be done. Meetings are important. I don't have meetings for the sake of meetings. If it can be an email, it's never going to be an email with my team. But if it can be a message, it'll be a message with my team. Those kinds of things. You want to understand how your team best thrives. And just because you want something done a specific way doesn't mean to say that it can't be done a little differently to get there. So think about this. If you want a blog post to be posted on your website, there's probably a few things that you want to be done in terms of the image that gets created, the SEO that happens, those kinds of ideas, how it's categorized on the website. But maybe it doesn't matter whether or not they do the image first or whether they do the categorizing first, right? There's a bunch of different pieces. As long as the whole is done the way it happens, it doesn't matter. There has been multiple times inside my business when I have given somebody an SOP or a process and here's how we do things. And they say, oh, that's great. I get what you're doing. But, you know, usually I do this and then that. Okay, no problem. Or they've come back and gone, this is cool. But you know what? We could actually skip this part if we did this. When you have that interdependence, when you have that trust with your team, they're going to feel strongly committed to making sure that they're doing a good job. They're going to take ownership. And they're going to feel like it's okay to come to you with those ideas because they feel like they're being heard. This is all really important when you're building with a team that is going to serve you long-term. It is really important to make sure that that clear communication is not only welcomed but expected. Sort of a double-edged sword on that one. When you are asking for communication, it's important that you allow them to say their piece. And if you don't agree, That's okay. You don't have to agree with everything, but it is important to have a conversation so that you guys can feel things out and move things around. Maybe they would rather do it this way and you're like, I really don't want you to, right? Have the clear conversation. Say, it makes me feel better if we could do it this way. Would you be open to doing it this way? Have these conversations so that you can all be on the same page. Now, it can get really easy to micromanage, especially if you've had trouble in the past with team members. If you've had trouble perhaps with hiring people who didn't get the work done that you anticipated them getting done, or if you're just stuck in that, I can't, nobody else can do it as good as me, the whole micromanaging thing can be very, very quick and not very noticeable. It might not feel like you're micromanaging. There are some things that maybe might trigger you to see that you're micromanaging. If you're always asking the same questions over and over again and you are getting the same response So, for example, did you do this task? Yes. Did you do this task? Yes. If it's the same thing over and over again and you know that they're doing their job, it becomes a micromanaging piece. If you know that they are constantly delivering on time but every week before you're like, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? Are you ready? It becomes a very big red flag on the micromanaging front. There's a lot of little things that happen as well. Now, In my world, I understand that sometimes we drop the ball. I drop the ball. I know my team's gonna— they're not gonna be better than I am. And I know I drop the ball. So, if they're dropping the ball, the first thing I have to do is say, are they doing that because there's something going on? Have a conversation with the team, that open communication. Hey, what's up? How come this didn't get done? What's going on? It's possible that something happened in their family or they have some kind of issue that's occurred and they need some assistance or they need to take some time off. Whatever the case may be, that's something that that could have happened. It's possible that maybe they were trying to get the work done, but they were waiting on somebody else, but they were too shy to say they were waiting and they needed help from somebody. Empower them to be able to ask those questions to make sure that that other person is going to give them what they need so that they can move forward. Or maybe there's a communication breakdown on the team and somehow you thought this information was transferred or somebody else thought information was transferred, but it wasn't. This is an opportunity for growth within the company and an opportunity for this communication to get better. So there's always a reason why things getting done, the question becomes, is it not getting done because somebody refuses? Or is there something blocking their path? Is it because they clearly just don't want to do what they're doing? This is a really cool concept. So instead of me micromanaging, I like to ask questions. Hopefully, you might get a hint from that, right? So if somebody's not getting the work done on a consistent basis, And there's no indication that there's a roadblock or that there's not an indication of a communication breakdown. One of the first questions I ask is, do you still like doing what you're doing? It's an easy question. Do you still like our mission? Do you still like what we're doing in the company? Do you still feel connected to what the company is doing? Do you still like what you do for the company? Is there anything that's on your plate today that you would like to Maybe offload this to something else. Maybe you want not to do— maybe you don't want to do that anymore. Or perhaps there's something else in the company that's happening that you would rather do. Or maybe there's another thing that you would like to take on as an opportunity. These are some great ways to have conversations that allow you to understand where your team's at without you pointing fingers and saying, you suck. There are some great growth methods here. You can create an amazing team with lots and lots of trust. This interdependence with each other is super important. And then, of course, the group dynamics with each person. When I bring somebody new onto the team, my thoughts obviously are, can they do the job? Do I like them? Do I feel like they can do what they need to do? But also, do I think they're going to fit with the team? There's an energy about our team. There's a way we do things, right? There's the team spirit, so to speak. Is that person going to jive with this or not? And are they so deeply involved in the team that it could cause a rift or maybe that they wouldn't be a good fit? Those are some questions. So you always want to look at when you're bringing somebody new into the team, how's that going to work? And if you notice that there's a rift between 2 people, ask some questions the same as you did when you were worried about whether they're getting the job done. Ask some questions. How's it going? How's your work with so-and-so? And I'll ask it on both sides and see how things are going. So I hope that this gives you enough information to think about your team. If you don't have one and you're just building one, maybe this gives you some ideas on how you can start to put together your team. If you have a team, and you're not sure why it's not functioning the way you want. Maybe we've given you some tips and tricks to keep going and maybe find out what's going on. And of course, we did link the team dynamics quiz in the show notes so that you'll be able to go ahead and pull that up and take that quiz. And hopefully that gives you some light as well. I hope you have a fantastic week and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.