The Human Connection Ritual That Builds A Self-Healing Team feat. Mike Malloy

Human connection is a strategic advantage. Uh, when the people on your team feel trust, rapport, and comfort working together, their nervous systems relax, communications improves, uh, creativity increases, and loyalty grows even stronger. Teams stop protecting themselves and start supporting each other. In business, when you as a leader create genuine human connection, people care more, contribute more, and perform at an even higher level because they feel seen, valued, and safe. This is what Mike Malloy is going to talk to you about. Mike is the founder and CEO of Malloy Industries, which matches entrepreneurs with relentlessly generous fractional executives to help scale their businesses. He has nearly 2 decades of experience as the CEO of Waveborn Sunglasses, program director of the Halcyon, uh, incubator in Washington, D.C., and 2002 Entrepreneurship Professor of the Year at Georgetown University. Mike is a servant leader and a trusted advisor to more than 100 entrepreneurs. He loves dad jokes and only wears Hawaiian shirts. Mike's title for you is the human connection ritual that builds a self-healing team. Please help me welcome Mike Malloy. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. You're here today because you want even more human connection. You're going to get 3 questions that I've been asking my team every Monday for the past decade. I'm here today because I lost everything when I didn't have human connection. Joe Polish says, "Human connection is the trust, rapport, and comfort of working together. You can feel it in your nervous system." That's the kind of connection I'm talking about today. Not connection with your spouse, not connection with your kids, talking about connection with the people on your team. A decade ago at 29, I was the CEO of a social enterprise sunglass company. From the outside, it looked like I was on top of the world. I was partying with rock stars, I hung out with celebrity friends. But I saw my teammates as worker bees, job titles, seats on a bus, not humans. And from the inside, I had no human connection with anyone on my team. I was alone in a room full of people. And because I had no human connection, when the business started to crumble around me, nobody told me the truth. Nobody pushed back. Nobody said, "Mike, you're losing it." At 30, I filed for business bankruptcy and personal bankruptcy. I was completely broke. I had to move back into my mom and dad's basement. I was depressed, I was ashamed, and I was completely and utterly alone with no human connection. I built a company hoping that it would give me freedom, but what I actually built was a cage, and I was the only one in it because I had no human connection. If you're an entrepreneur, this might sound familiar. You're isolated. You feel it even when your team's sitting next to you or they're with you on Zoom. You feel like an imposter. You wonder if you're the only one faking it. You're unapproachable. Your team won't talk to you because you're the boss. That's a human connection problem. And after I lost everything, I went on a journey to figure out how to actually build human connection with the people I lead. I learned that there are 3 types of businesses. There are for-profits, there are non-profits, and then there are no-profits, right? In 2016, I decided to work my way back up to a non-profit, and I spent the next 5 years running the Halcyon Incubator Program for early-stage entrepreneurs. 8 founders from around the world would come and live in a 30,000-square-foot mansion in Georgetown and go through a 5-month program with me. Every Monday, We sat down for family breakfast, and that's where I stumbled upon the simplest tool I've ever found to create human connection on a team. 3 questions every Monday with your team. Number 1, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are you doing personally? Number 2, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are you doing professionally? And number 3, what's one thing you learned this week? That's it. That's the whole tool. And so here's what I want you to do right now, and I've actually budgeted 30 seconds in my talk, so I want everybody to take out a piece of paper, take out your phone, and I need you to do this because Joel's going to ask afterwards how many people did it, and I'm looking for 100% conversion rate. All right, it matters. Uh, how are you doing personally, 1 to 10? How are you doing professionally, 1 to 10? And what's one thing you've learned at Genius Network? This week.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video, and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description, or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can simply go to JoePolish.com and you can get a copy there.

You got another 15 seconds, and as you're writing this down, I want you to imagine sharing what you write down— God bless you— with your team next Monday, and then asking them to share their answers. Because here's the thing that nobody tells you about leading a team: they're all looking at you. They're watching. They will only be as vulnerable as you are. And that's why I go first every single week, out loud, in front of everyone. Personally, professionally, learning. The Monday after Easter, I told my team I'm a 9 personally, thanks to a great Easter egg hunt on the beach with my Chief Cuteness Officer. And I'm a 5 professionally because Cheesy, sitting next to me there, told me on Friday that she's leaving us. She got a full-time job offer at Microsoft. And I lost 2 big deals last week. The Monday after Mother's Day, told my team that I was a 4. I lost my mom a few years ago. That was a hard day. And it lingered into the week. I'm an 8 professionally. And when you share that type of information with your team, you give them permission to be human. To be real, to show up as their authentic self, it's okay to be a 4 or a 5. You create the potential energy for human connection when you are vulnerably trustworthy. And so Brené Brown says that human connection requires vulnerability and courage to be authentic and genuine. You must have the courage to take off your armor and be vulnerable with your team. Personally, professionally learning. Oh, and there's one rule that makes this whole thing work, alright? No 7s. Alright? Because a 7 is a polite lie. A 7 is, "I don't really want to deal with that question. Eh, I'm fine. Leave me alone, boss." Fine is worthless. There is no potential for human connection with a 7. So don't allow 7s. Everyone on your team has to pick between being an 8 or a 6. And there's a big difference between an 8 and a 6. An 8 is, "I'm genuinely doing pretty well and it's gonna be a good week." A 6 is, "I'm having a hard time and I might need to be helped, heard, or hugged." Whoever is below the line gets the love. When you are a 6 or lower, your team rallies around you and they're gonna support you that week. A few weeks ago, my chief of staff Tina said that she was a 5 personally in the staff meeting. I didn't force her to unpack that. The team shared some encouragement in the chat. And what I did next, right after the meeting, was text her and say, hey, let's chat. We set up a one-on-one on Tuesday morning because I wanted to create that space for her to share how she's doing and how I can support her. That outreach, that conversation, that follow-up, that is where the human connection compounds exponentially. The numbers on Monday are the triggers that create even more human connection. Without the number, there's no awareness, and without the awareness, there's no potential for human connection with your dream team, whether or not they all wear Hawaiian shirts. I started asking these 3 questions on September 5th, 2016. That's 506 Mondays that my teams have been answering these 3 questions over the past decade to create even more human connection. With an average of 9 people on my team, that's 36 potential one-on-one connections. And 506 times 36 potential one-on-one connections is 18,216 opportunities for even more human connection. I was a math major. It doesn't require hundreds of Mondays, though, or thousands of one-on-one connections. All right? It starts with one Monday and one human connection. And do you even know what the second biggest win is? That you're gonna get from this? There's this running counter in your head and you start to track how are you doing personally and professionally, especially on Sundays because you know you have to share your numbers tomorrow. And the same thing happens to your team because they start thinking about how their numbers are and what are they gonna share. They also start to digest more of what they're learning so they can share with the team on Monday. 3 simple questions. Let's dig into the third one. It's not win or lose, it's win or learn, and learning is winning. So what are people learning? On any given Monday, here's what you might hear. My team's learning how to use a new AI tool in one department that we can spread cross-functionally. Holy shit, I'm alive! Thank you, Kyle. That was one of the best learnings I've shared all year with my team. I have that note card taped on my wall. My copywriter attended a webinar about how to turn readers into buyers. Sounds like he's working hard to improve his craft and grow our business. My executive partner listened to a 2-hour podcast about how to create more influence. Sounds like she's doing a better job managing me and my inbox. And my chief of staff shared this one on the Monday after Mother's Day to support me, take some of the pressure off the holidays. Feels like I'm not isolated or alone anymore. And then there's the time my ops manager shared that he's been studying High Valyrian. Just so we're clear, this is the dragon language from Game of Thrones. Don't bring that one to the meeting. Bring us a key learning from a book, which is way more useful than a made-up dragon language. This is one of the best books that has influenced our team in the past year. Personally, professionally, learning. So I want you to imagine your next team meeting when you go in on Monday and you tell your team, "I'm a 6 personally because..." You tell the truth. And imagine the week after when your team starts sharing when they're below the line. Now imagine the month after when nobody feels like they have to put on a fake mask to come to work and your team sees you as a more approachable leader. And imagine the year after when the trust, rapport, and comfort of working together is something every single person on your team can feel in their nervous system. That's what these 3 questions compound into. So ask 3 questions every Monday for the rest of your career. Human connection you can feel in your nervous system. I'll see you at family breakfast.

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