Having to re-recruit, rehire, and retrain, and wait for a new employee to get up to speed is devastating in terms of cost.
— Patrick Lencioni
Irrelevance is the feeling that an employee gets when they don't see how their job really makes a difference in someone else's life in some large or small way.
If you have doubt about a person's humility or smarts, don't ignore it. More often than not, there is something causing that doubt.
On great teams - the kind where people trust each other, engage in open conflict, and then commit to decisions - team members have the courage and confidence to confront one another when they see something that isn't serving the team.
You need to make sure you hire people who are capable of being strong team players. Team members should fit the company's culture, be committed to the team, and be capable of being genuinely vulnerable and selfless.
Your focus should be on creating an environment where growth can occur and then letting nature take its course.
Too many executives I've met over the years have the mentality of a bodybuilder; they've come to accept the idea that growth is synonymous with success.
I have yet to meet members of a leadership team who I thought lacked the intelligence or the domain expertise required to be successful. I've met many, however, who failed to foster organizational health. Their companies were riddled with politics, various forms of dysfunction, and general confusion about their direction and mission.
Without trust, the most essential element of innovation - conflict - becomes impossible.
There is almost nothing more painful for a leader than seeing good people leave a growing organization, whether it's a priest watching a Sunday school teacher walk out the door or a CEO saying goodbye to a co-founder.
I've seen it again and again in my consulting: Most teams are too large to be innovative, despite their leaders' best intentions.
Engaged, enthusiastic, and loyal employees are pivotal drivers of growth and health in any organization.
I've spent many a long flight talking to flight attendants, trying to understand what kind of employment experience underlies such a consistent lack of concern for customers.
Employees that feel known and they feel like they know why their job matters and they have a sense of measuring it stay later, do extra work, and are committed to the organization above the requirements that they have.
If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.
Smart people tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to deal with others in the most effective way. They ask good questions, listen to what others are saying, and stay engaged in conversations intently.
When team members openly and passionately share their opinions about a decision, they don't wonder whether anyone is holding back. Then, when the leader has to step in and make a decision because there is no easy consensus, team members will accept that decision because they know that their ideas were heard and considered.
Are your people uncomfortable during meetings and tired at the end? If not, they're probably not mixing it up enough and getting to the bottom of important issues.
Some companies simply aren't meant to be bigger than they are. They provide products and services that satisfy their customers in a way that pays the bills, produces reasonable profits, and allows them to keep their people employed and fulfilled. And there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that.
Although most executives pay lip service to the idea of hiring for cultural fit, few have the courage or discipline to make it the primary criteria for bringing someone into the company.
The truth is that intelligence, knowledge, and domain expertise are vastly overrated as the driving forces behind competitive advantage and sustainable success.
Employees who can't trust their leader to be vulnerable are not going to be vulnerable and build trust with one another.
Smaller groups of people can establish trusting relationships.
When leaders throughout an organization take an active, genuine interest in the people they manage, when they invest real time to understand employees at a fundamental level, they create a climate for greater morale, loyalty, and, yes, growth.
The sad fact is that it would be fair to say that United is a generic, bureaucratic, tired company. A sort of DMV in the sky. No real culture. No real strategy. No real expectations for employees or customers. All of which is a shame.
I have many times marveled at how I could feel so good about myself while eating peanuts in a middle seat on Southwest Airlines and yet feel so condescended to in first class on United.
Every employee needs to know that there's somebody out there that they serve. And when we don't let people know that for one reason or another, we're depriving them of a fulfilling job.
Clients don't expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by acknowledging when a mistake has been made and humbly apologizing for it.
What's amazing is that so many leaders who value teamwork will tolerate people who aren't humble. They reluctantly hire self-centred people and then justify it because those people have desired skills.
When team members trust each other and know that everyone is capable of admitting when they're wrong, then conflict becomes nothing more than the pursuit of truth or the best possible answer.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.
At its core, all authentic growth depends on more customers wanting more of what your company offers. Any other drivers - pricing gimmicks, heroic marketing efforts, forced acquisitions - are ultimately destructive.
Too often, companies focus on systems and structures that facilitate cultural change at the mid-management level, overlooking problems closer to the top.
The fact is, employees cannot make breakthroughs if they can't openly and honestly disagree with their peers and their leader. Indeed, great leaders don't just permit conflict; they actively try to elicit it from reluctant employees as well.
When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.
If you really want to step up your team's creative thinking, take a hard look at how many people you're putting in a room together. More than three to five is probably too many.
When employees feel anonymous in the eyes of their managers, they simply cannot love their work, no matter how much money they make or how wonderful their jobs seem to be.
God bless those employees at United who somehow continue to be gracious and patient and generous with customers even while bearing the brunt of a broken company themselves.
