The Wandering Mind:

People run from toxic cultures, and they desperately want to be a part of companies that allow them to thrive, grow and make an impact. 

Last week we explored the Harvard study that was done in 2010 on the Wandering Mind, and identified ways to dig deeper into intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of your candidates for interview purposes. 

The same philosophies stand true for your existing team. 

You need to understand what makes them tick, as everyone thinks differently and is driven by different things. 

Think about your team…

Do they all act, perform, think and look the same?

If your answer is yes, that’s a whole other issue that I’m happy to dig into with you offline. 

Most likely your answer is no.

And that’s great!

A diverse team presents its challenges for a leader because the leader has to take different steps to communicate, motivate and challenge effectively. 

As you know by now, I’m a big fan of DISC. A fun exercise to use in a team meeting (rather than waste time or only talk about things that need to be improved) is to have each member of the team take a DISC assessment prior to the meeting. 

Let them know that during the meeting they’ll be expected to talk about their DISC profile results:

• How to best communicate with them

• How using bullet points, or paragraphs, or numbers impacts the way their brains comprehend information. 

• How to best reach them (Slack, email, phone, smoke signal?) What’s the best way to get a hold of them quickly? 

• What they’re motivated by

If you’re really feeling adventurous, bringing in your cross-functional teams to complete this exercise will impact your team’s day-to-day output significantly. 

Why? Because sales needs things from accounting, recruiting needs things from HR, marketing needs things from sales, engineering needs things from product, and the cycle goes on…

It’s incredibly important for you to build a culture based on trust for your individual team. 

As companies get bigger, they tend to become siloed quickly.

You go from having 20 people on an all-hands meeting, all feeling like they’re a part of one exciting team, to having 200, 600, 1500, 2000 people on one massive call, with most of them video-off, disengaged, emailing because they’re stressed and don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done. 

I feel like I got off topic a bit here…the wandering mind.

Here we go. 

When 46.9% of the day is spent thinking about something other than the task at hand, you run a massive risk of having your team spending half their day worrying about job security, layoffs, whether or not you like them, their performance, the proposal they just submitted, you not using enough emojis or exclamation points on slack…I’m just spitballing here…

DISC is a very small first step to building trust, and understanding your team more fluently.

It really begins with you listening, and creating a judgment-free environment. 

You need to expect top performance of your team, and you need them to deliver.

Your job depends on it. 

People don’t deliver long-term when they’re afraid.

It may feel like it works at first, but you will lose them. They will run. 

The question is - do you want to build a culture that people run from or run towards? 

How to work with me:

Recruiting: contract or per-placement hiring. Reach me here.

Writing: Freelance writing for blogs and publications. Reach me  here.
Recruiting and Interviewing guides are available here. 

Are you seeking a new role? Binge my courses or work with me 1:1 to help you land your next role here.