Episode 114: #1 Thing To Do To Build A Better Team This Year
Best Investment A Biz Owner Can Make Especially If Your Team Is Virtual
I’ve invested easily 100k+ in coaches, mentors, and programs since starting my businesses, and I want to share more about my highest ROI investment of 2023. It didn’t have anything to do with my marketing or my systems, but instead was solely focused on elevating my team and our relationship with each other.
Those of us with online businesses and no HQ have the flexibility of having team members from all over the world, but this also has its downsides when it comes to truly getting to know them and understanding how they think, work, and react to a variety of situations.
I have team members in the Philippines, the US and Singapore, and with all our different backgrounds, experiences, communication styles, and cultural nuances, I decided that we NEEDED to meet in person. This is what I envisioned as the next step to majorly leveling up my business. Getting everyone on the same page, fully invested in each other and the company mission. And that’s how we began planning our first team retreat in Boracay!
Some of the Benefits of Team Retreats that I was aiming for were…
1. Building Trust: As a team, everyone had a role to play to even make this trip happen. Our Filipino members handled the travel logistics, dates, locations, taking into account the time of year, weather, goals of the retreat..I mapped out bonding activities, key trainings and lessons…My newest hire was only just onboarded that week when she got the invite and trusted me enough to fly her across the world…This wouldn’t have happened without us trusting in each other and bringing the vision to life, and this feeling only deepened after spending time with everyone and seeing how perfectly everything came together.
2. Leadership Development: One of the key trainings we focused on was leadership. How each and every one of us was capable of strong leadership, and how we could bring that out of each individual.
3. Effective Communication: Another key focus was communication, which can be extremely challenging due to time difference and cultural difference. Creating a safe space for open communication and feedback is essential for a thriving team culture, and we practiced being vulnerable and sharing what we might not have felt comfortable doing over slack.
4. Wellness and Intention is a core value of mine, so incorporating wellness activities into the retreat was a must. It demonstrates a genuine concern for the well-being of your team members, helping prevent burnout and keeping morale high. We all enjoyed in house massages, plenty of walks on the beach, and an unlimited amount of mango smoothies!
If retreats are totally new to you, here are some planning tips and different team bonding options! Because let’s be real, flying everyone around the world is not always an option.
If budget, scheduling or visa constraints limit international or cross country travel, consider smaller-scale gatherings with the closer team members. This month I’m flying my stateside team to NYC, but then I’m flying myself to Manila to see the rest of the team there. And if that isn’t an option, another thing I like to do is give every team member a quarterly wellness credit to use. They can use this on anything that contributes to their wellness whether it be a spa day, a yoga class, a massage….and then I have them share how they’re feeling after and any takeaways.
Whether you decide to meet in person or over zoom, make sure you’re allocating dedicated time for team bonding, strategic planning, and personal development. Strike a balance between focused work sessions and free time for team members to connect on a personal level.
Even though this year of business was more of a challenge than any other year, one of the biggest things I’m celebrating is investing in my team retreat that prioritized the mind, body, and spirit. I was able to showcase my commitment to leadership and team development, setting the stage for collaborative success and leading by example.
Breakthroughs happen when leadership is put into action, and a well-planned team retreat is a great catalyst for building a thriving, connected, and high-performing team!
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, small business heroes. It's Gloria Chow, award winning small business PR coach, your unofficial hype woman, and host of this podcast where we go deep into making PR accessible so that founders are seen, heard, and valued, helping you become the most confident founder that you can. We are rewriting old narratives.
We are shattering the status quo. And once in a while, like this episode, I go beyond just PR and marketing and talk about behind the scenes of what it means to be a business owner, because if you're listening to this, chances are you also have a business and it's so much more than just going at it alone.
Now, one thing that's really changed the game for my business. And obviously there have been so many sleepless nights. Ugly cries, stressful tantrums, as you know, I can relate. One of the things that I really did this year to focus on growing my business is investing in my team. And I know this word gets thrown around so much, right?
Like what is this fluffy amorphous thing? Teamwork, leadership, team culture. You know, you read about it in text. Folks, you've seen all the business Titans talk about it, but what does it mean to actually [00:01:00] build a team? And if your business is going to grow, there is no way that you can grow without building a team.
And so the one thing I want to share with you that has absolutely changed the game for my team building is hosting team retreats. Now my team is a virtual, like most of our online business owners as well. You might have contractors overseas that are in different States, and this is just the normalcy of working remotely, right online.
We all got so used to being able to have the. flexibility of working with people anywhere and having that remote work contractor flexibility where maybe we don't need to rent an office or maybe we don't need to hire someone full time and still be able to benefit from their skillset. But here's the thing when you work remotely with people from different cultures and backgrounds and they don't even have to be in a different country, they might have a different belief in you.
What matters is getting people together in person. So one of the things that I started to do was fly my team around the world. Yes, around the world because we have team members. was overseas and in the U S so that we can meet face to face. This has [00:02:00] singled handedly changed the way I thought about how I show up as a leader to be able to go from just simple transactions of, Hey, I'm paying you to do something, do it too.
I want to invest in this person in the longterm, knowing that there's absolutely no guarantees that they may or may not stick with me, but it's that putting the trust forward. It's that making the time to not only see them in person, but get everyone else. Who's always on Slack to meet in person that has fundamentally changed how my business works.
Now, obviously in the beginning, it's very hard if you have a limited budget to fly your team around the world, but getting the team together, whether it's just a couple of your team members who are closer by or finding a way to find cheap tickets so that you can meet in the middle, that is something that is definitely an investment that will pay off.
And here are reasons why. Now, one of the things that I've learned is that leadership is not about the books that you've read, the things that you learn in masterminds, a podcast, he listens to you, all the YouTube channels, leadership is something that you do as a verb, as an action, right? I can read all about the textbook frameworks [00:03:00] on how to be a visionary leader and how to hold people accountable and how to delegate.
But if I'm not actually practicing that in the container with other people. It doesn't ever get exercise. It doesn't actually get realized. And like they say, leadership is all about flexing that muscle. So you have to practice it as much as possible from the way that you ask questions, from the way that you have difficult conversations, from the way that you hold people accountable.
But I will say that having a team retreat and getting people to meet in person, no matter if it's three hours or three days, that is absolutely transformative because that is leadership in action. It's that simple act of telling your team, I care about you so much that I'm willing to fly myself and you, or maybe get on a bus, train or automobile to spend that time together to bond.
I am willing to get to know you outside of the container of our daily to do lists of all of the deadlines and the promos and all the things to sit with you, to share a meal with you, to talk about how you're doing, to invest in your time. Maybe it's doing. Something that's wellness related, right? So for example, for [00:04:00] my team, we did a spa day and it doesn't, doesn't have to be expensive.
It could be something like going on a hike, which is also really good for wellbeing. So I encourage you if you haven't thought about hosting an in person team retreat, this is something you got to put on your list. And if you're not at a place where you can do that because your team member might be really far away, then see how you can either meet in the middle or do something virtual at first.
What I mean by this is set aside a block of time. I recommend at least three to five hours. And yes, you can take a virtual lunch breaks as well. Set aside that time to get to know each other, to plan your vision for your business. And by this, I don't mean the CEO is dictating. I want this, I want this, I want this.
It's a co creation, exploration, a discovery of here are all the talents and skill sets we have in this business. Here is our unique selling point and what we bring to the market. How can we take that to the next level? Right? So things like annual planning, things like how can we increase our customer So that we offer the best damn service around.
It [00:05:00] could be something around optimizing your product and offers the way that it's delivered. It could be about getting unstuck and doing a lot of training around communication. So one of the things that I did for my team retreat in the Philippines, where I flew my US team members was we talked about the difference between performance and hard work.
I really truly believe that it's not about hard work that gets you where you want to go. It's about performance and performance is doing the work and getting the result with the least amount of friction possible. And I actually said this to my team. I said, if you give me a whole day, I could run a marathon.
I might take breaks. I could walk. But that's not performance. Performance is being able to get something done, a common vision, a common goal with the least amount of friction possible, with the least amount of time wasted, resources wasted, challenges. So we talked about performance and we talked about communication being a key conduit of performance.
We talked about what it means to give and receive feedback frequently and fluidly, not just me telling the person how I enjoy or not enjoy their work. It's about creating a safe space. [00:06:00] Where people can come with their ideas and not be shut down. So maybe that is creating a task board on Notion or Asana or Slack with all of the ideas.
So that you are basically saying, I value you as an equal thought partner, not just someone who is doing work for me or a robot with instructions of what to do and you implementing it. I value your ideas because I truly believe that together we can accomplish more than if all of us were just working separately.
That's the whole reason why all of the successful CEOs spend most of their time building their team, not so much on the day to day work. Another thing about communication training that's so good is that you're able to practice the most critical skill in building a business, which is communication in a safe container, right?
So you, you can do exercises and you can do a what if scenarios such as if something happened and this person made a mistake, what would be the best way to be able to hold them accountable, but also not discourage them. And you could do a kind of a role play where you're not assigning blame to anyone, but for example.
Me as a CEO, I can sit at [00:07:00] like the employee and then I can have the employee actually counsel me. And so that way it's an exploration of saying, these are the conversations that need to be had and we are okay to all have them. It's not about only the CEO telling the employee or contractor how good their performance is.
And so I think. being on that same level of communication where everyone is responsible for giving and receiving feedback that creates a culture of safety that creates a culture of belonging of emotional security that we know from research is so key to building a successful team. And so that's what we did.
We actually like had a whiteboard out. We talked about types of difficult conversations. That we encounter in the workplace and that's industry agnostic. And so by writing down all the different types of difficult and uncomfortable conversations, we were able to create a space to basically practice having those conversations before the stakes were really high before it became a real thing.
Right? So things like what to do if somebody. Forget something or what to do if somebody has performance is dwindling and they're checked [00:08:00] out. How would you approach them? And I truly believe that breakthroughs and transformations happen when you're able to have uncomfortable conversations. I actually told my team, your level of growth and performance is directly related to your ability to have difficult and tough conversations.
And it makes sense, right? Because even in my marriage, and I'm sure many of you can relate that are in partnership or have close family friends, like your level of being able to relate to someone successfully and get the most out of that relationship is directly related to your ability to have difficult conversations.
If everything was pleasantries, how are you? I'm good. Okay, great. There would be no bond. There would be no association. There would be no closeness. And that's what we're trying to build. We are trying to, in this online remote world. Build a culture of closeness, of safety, of belonging, and that has to happen when you have difficult conversations.
So that's one of the trainings that I did as well. Another thing, if you are going to have a team retreat is you want to put in time where it's not scheduled because you don't want to pack the days or day like back to back to the point where it's [00:09:00] emotionally exhausting and there's so much attention.
Demanded from people. You want it to be a balance of hyper focus, but then also giving people the freedom to explore and have fun. So for example, for my team, we scheduled times where we were presenting on a white board, talking about communication, talking about our annual plan. But then I had blocks of time where they could do whatever they wanted.
And I think it was so great because they actually went off and bonded on their own while I was catching up on work. And it was this kind of freedom and flexibility that brought a lightness to the whole thing and not this military esque schedule of like, okay, we're on a team retreat. You're on my dime.
So I own you, right? That is not the energy that is going to foster a good relationship with the people that you work with. Another thing to keep in mind if you do host a team retreat, which I highly recommend, is doing something related to wellness and intention. So I actually hired a meditation facilitator to do a meditation and breathwork exercise because I realized that if mentally, spiritually, my employees and contractors are [00:10:00] constantly overwhelmed and they only feel like I'm making demands at them, the road to burnout is really quick, my friend.
But if you invest in your employee and your team's wellbeing, whether it's going on a nature walk. Whether it's giving them books and resources, whether it's asking them how they are emotionally and giving them the tools to process that and to be in alignment that will show them so much about how you care and invest in them because you can have all of the communication you want about work, but if they don't feel like you are investing in them as a holistic whole human being.
You will never be able to get the most out of that relationship. So for my retreat that I had, we actually did a couple of mindfulness and visualization exercises where we did affirmations to affirm how powerful they are so that they can elevate and step up in their role, right? And sometimes it's not about their skillset.
It's about, are you creating the confidence for your team to elevate their voice, their opinion, even if it might not be something that you want to do, because that is ultimately why you want to build a team. So you have a sounding board of different ideas, not. Full of [00:11:00] yes, men are yes. People who are going to execute your vision.
Remember together, you can always accomplish more than just yourself. And if you hire these people, because you believed in them, then isn't it time for you to really discover their brilliance and all of their ideas. It's about creating that space and allowance so that they have permission and confidence to do that.
So as we wrap up the year, now we're recording this. I've been reflecting a lot about the mistakes that I've made in my business. And there have been many, I'll probably make another episode on that. But one of the things that I did that I'm so proud of is hosting an in person retreat for three days where I invested.
it in the mind, body, and spirit of my teammates. We went on walks. We had great food. We spent time together that was not about talking about the business, but we also had hyper focused planning sessions about the business and how we can show up and how we can make our PR program even better, how we can create the most inclusive community online for small businesses so that they can continue to get results.
So my friend, whether it's a virtual. Or in person hosting a team [00:12:00] retreat with all of your members. I don't care if they're an intern or they only work for you two hours a week. Having that team together will show your leadership and demonstrate how much you care and you will get that in return. So without further ado, I'm going to let you get off this episode and maybe write down a couple of ideas of how you can get your team together, whether it's a virtual at first, but in person and what kind of activities and things you want to talk about, because remember this is when breakthroughs happen.
I really feel like having one team retreat. is the equivalent of working with someone for six months. You feel so bonded and in the presence of your team that they feel that too. Hey, small business hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, the New York times, Marie Claire, pop sugar, and so many more, even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connection, that's right.
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