Leadership Challenge #4 - 5 steps for creating trust in your company
Happy Saturday,
Welcome back to my weekly newsletter on the future of leadership.
Welcome back to my weekly newsletter, which is dedicated to redefining leadership for the future. Each week, we tackle a leadership challenge designed for you to engage with at your own pace.
The latest challenges so far:
This week, we focus on internal team dynamics, on the unarguably most important factor in teams: trust.
As usual, you'll receive the context (why it's important) and five actionable steps (how to do it) that you can implement at your own pace, DIY-style. Expect to invest about 3-4 hours in total. Let's get started.
Why does trust matter in remote teams?
All of the words of this question matter: trust matters, especially in remote teams. But why?
First of all, let’s start with trust.
Every leader knows the three principles of trust in teams:
The higher the trust within your team, the more clarity you have with your team.
The more clarity you have with your team, the better the engagement is within your team.
The better your engagement is within your team, the better your team’s performance is.
So, as a leader, your most important internal goal is not to wiggle with performance metrics or have more meetings to gain clarity but to create an environment for your team that nurtures trust.
Because if you have more trust, all the other figures will improve almost naturally.
Second, let’s address the problem of remote teams.
Trust is naturally built with two factors: proximity and time.
If you are in the same location as others, trust happens naturally. You have to be a real jerk to be unable to build trust with others in an office. In remote, even if you are an angel, you won’t be able to build trust without intentionally doing so.
If you spend more time together, the elapsed time builds trust naturally. However, when you work remotely, the job market is global. If you don’t like a company, you can get a new job overnight. Add that to the generational traits of job hopping, and you have people coming in and out of your team.
Hopefully, by the end of this challenge, you can solve the proximity and the time problem. By intentionally creating a trusted workplace, your retention numbers improve.
Regardless of your business or operational preferences, the fundamentals are still true. Companies are a bunch of people working towards the same goals, and people are the same, whether they work remotely or not.
So, let’s dive into trust and how to build authentic connections within your team.
The steps are not interchangeable this time. Do them one after the other.
Day 1 - Audit your ops
Start an ops sheet. As the leader, you have a fine understanding of what is happening within your business (hopefully).
Column 1 should be the operational category. The basics are all the same for everyone. You have Finance, Project Management, HR/People Ops, Sales and Marketing, Admin, etc. Depending on the complexity of your business, make subcategories (Finance - Revenue, Finance - Cashflow, Project Management - Product Development, etc.).
Column 2 should have a score of 1 to 3, which indicates the level of transparency of that operational category. Score each category from 1 to 3.
1 - Transparent only to you, no one else internally
2 - Transparent only to you and a few other leaders within the company
3 - Transparent to the entire team within the company
The goal is to strive to have 3 in most categories.
Of course, the devil is in the details. For example, Finance is the most sensitive data in any company: some companies share the quarterly earnings and balance sheet internally but keep cashflow closed from everyone internally.
But for now, score each of them as they are now.
Day 2 - Ask: why not 3?
Go back to your scoring sheet. For every category where you don’t have a 3, ask yourself: why not 3?
With that question in mind, add Column 3. That’s for improvement: what can you do to improve that 1 or 2 score? Write down the task or approach and what you will do to improve.
The goal isn’t to get all categories on a score of 3. Well, that would be amazing. You would become an open company. But not everyone can be that way. The goal is to improve the existing number, even if it is a slight improvement.
Day 3 - Create/amend your information hub
If you are a leader of a remote company, you probably have an internal hub. We called it intranet back in the day. Now you have all the tools, such as Almanac, Notion, etc. It is where you share information that has not been changed daily with your team.
If you don’t have one, create one. That might be a bit too much of a task for this challenge - maybe hire a consultant or give the responsibility to someone as it is a greater task than the reality of this challenge. Having one is mandatory for a remote team. And before you ask, your Google Drive is not a hub.
Amend your hub based on the scores you did. Anything that is 3 share it with everyone, even newcomers.
By doing so, you implement operational transparency. The more transparency you have, the higher the trust is. Transparency is about only one thing: access to information.
The wider the access is to information within your company, the more transparency you have. Your hub is the best place to manage that access.
Day 4 - Build a synched connection between your people
In a remote setting, you would be surprised how little people know about what is happening within the company. In the office, people get information organically and naturally through proximity and time.
So, you must establish an intentional habit of sharing and discussing information with your team, especially about the company's big-level insights.
The best option for that is a monthly recurring meeting. All-hands.
Make the meeting to your liking, but share 3 key things:
Financial performance of the month, especially revenue progress and key figures.
Project performance of the month, especially product development.
Next month’s plans and goals.
I would also include people ops updates on key team members of the month—top performers, new joiners, etc. People need recognition.
Make it a habit and do it every month.
Day 5 - Set up an internal newsletter.
I have seen this only at a handful of remote companies, but it was a habit for most “old school” companies I have worked for.
A simple email communique written by you is sent to everyone once a month. You can use the content of the monthly synched meeting and add some spice of your own to it.
It is a very simple thing, but it boosts the trust within the company. Everyone will know where the company is headed, what you, as the leader, think, and where your focus is. It can be done even if you are a team leader, not the CEO.
With these five steps, you move in the direction of creating a better, more trusting workplace for your team. This challenge was one of the hardest ones so far, as there are so many things that you can do to do more.
But everything starts with five steps. You do the walking once you are in the rhythm.
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This newsletter content will serve as the backbone of your thought leadership program, which will be public for your team and everyone online.
Next week, the challenge will be about keeping the slience, listening, and hitting pause. Why is it important, and how can it be done?
If you have any questions, do let me know. I’m happy to help you.
Until next week,
Peter
