Tag Archive for: team empowerment

Elevating Business by Leveraging Your Team

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I’m pleased to introduce you to Jodie Cook, whom is an entrepreneur and writer.

Jodie started her business, a social media agency, in 2011 at the age of 22 and it was acquired in 2021. Along the way she wrote books and articles about the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship, including as a Forbes contributor, to help others with their careers. She was included on Forbes 30 under 30 list of 2017 and, after selling her agency, and published Ten Year Career, which helps readers reimagine business, design their life and fast track their freedom

In this episode Jodie and I examine mindset and how it translates to elevating business and teams.

Leveraging Your Teams Skills

Jodie Cook: So many business owners are very good at doing the doing because they come up with the idea and then they’re like, right, okay, let’s get to work, and then they do it. And a lot of the time, they don’t always do what they should do. They do what they could do. And because they’re very capable people, what they could do is just everything. So you end up doing everything. And then I was creating this limiting belief that it had to be me, because it wouldn’t be right if anyone else were doing it. And what I was doing there was confusing different with wrong, right? They were doing it differently. They weren’t doing it wrong. And so I had to move past that and be like, no, it’s okay. If I want to grow this company, I will have to bring other people in and take on board what they think, their ideas, and what they want to do. And it will take a different direction, but that’s okay because that’s necessary to live the life you want.

Dispelling Limiting Beliefs

Jodie Cook: So, getting over the limiting belief as well. 80% of the task is realizing that you have it, and then you test it. You go, what would happen if I decided to believe something else? Or what would happen if I decided to push this a little and see what happens? They will be wrong versus different ones.

It was like, I’m going to see what they do, and I’m not going to be the person who steps like swoops in to take control or tries to tell them to do something different. And from a leadership perspective, I turned from being a manager to a coach. So when I talked to my team, rather than being instructional, you did this, you did that, it would be, what do you think? Well, what do you think would happen if that happened? Well, what should your next step be?

Well, you’ve done this before. What happened last time? And it was a shift in how I spoke to my team and thought of myself as on a level with everyone. And we were all on the same side, on the same level, working towards the same goal. Rather than me as this boss who had these people working for me, I completely switched that and even changed that language.

So I never use the term employee; I don’t like it. I would always use team member or colleague or partner or associate.

How to Set Objectives and Achieve Goals as a Leader

Jodie Cook: everyone has their success system, which is different for us all. But when you have figured out what it is in one area, you can apply it to other areas in precisely the same way, and it will magically work because it’s your unique system. First, it’s setting the intention. It’s like, okay, what do I want to dWhich is either sell my agency, systemize my agency, write this book, or get this score in a competition, and then after that, it’s, who’s done this before? Or what did someone else do to get this? And in systemizing my business, I read the email because I figured that Michael Gerber had taught people he’s done it himself, and that would be a method that I could learn as well. And then, in selling my business, it was asking other people who sold their agency to tell me what they did. So there’s a kind of education piece, but the education piece can’t be just asking a friend who’s never done it has to be asking someone who has done this before and who knows who’s willing.

Yeah. After that, it’s figuring out what I need to do, and then it’s breaking down what I need to do into probably first monthly things, then weekly things, then daily things, and then putting them in my calendar, as in, like, you are going to do this every single day. When I wrote my book, I was speaking to other authors. It was creating a plan for the book and getting the concept.

But then the actual writing of it was 90 minutes at 07:00 a.m. Every single day for three months. And just having it on a wall chart in front of me where I ticked off each day when I’d done it because that’s just part of the successive system that my brain quite likes.

Facing Difficult Situations Head On

Jodie Cook: When the pandemic hit, I remember thinking, oh my God, because we lost about 25% of our client base in one week. We had clients in hospitality, travel, and events, and they were having a much worse time than us, but it knocked on to us. I remember thinking, “oh my God”, I’ve never known anything like this before. But because I have the training through powerlifting and whatever else, I could take a step back and go, “so this is my first pandemic. What are we going to do here?” and view the problem with distance. So it’s like anything difficult that happens, if you can take away the emotion, you can get into action and analyze it, and then you’ll figure out a much better response to it.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Building Team Trust

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #34 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Todd has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Todd Usen is a digital surgery pioneer, envisioning the future of surgical intelligence. Working within the medical industry for the past two decades, Todd has led teams as President of the Orthopaedic Organizations and Olympus Corporation. Now serving as CEO at Active Surgical he is empowering his team to develop surgical intelligence to help see what humans cannot.

Here are the top 3 insights he shared with the community.

1. What has fueled you throughout this journey? We want to hear more about what plants your feet on the floor every single morning as a CEO.

It’s interesting when I was young and I competed in sports through college I was really honoured and blessed.It forced a great time management system to play a sport where you’re on planes all week with tutors travelling with you and attending big conferences and then having to maintain your grades. You really learn some time management, but also the competitive nature that you have.

I got into the medical field years ago because of personal reasons. My mother had multiple sclerosis and I was somewhat inquisitive and never understood how someone that could have such healthy kids and a healthy family could have a disease like that, so I was just intrigued by being in the medical world and working towards making sure that would make a difference for patients. And the reason I say that is because every day when I wake up it’s those two things.

To the business world, I’ve always been grounded because I love taking a coach-approach. I’m not a big title person. I like being part of a team. I love making sure that I empower and develop people so that they can go do great things and even tell me what to do.

But I also keep my feet on the ground because I realize that it’s all about the patient, not trying to make robotics better. I’m not trying to make surgeons better. I’m not trying to bring a technology that is going to make me millions of dollars. It’s never really my thought process. It’s that we have something that’s going to make patients better, reduce complications, help overall health care. I know it sounds like, well, there’s no way that’s true, but it really is. It’s always been my mission, it’s always been going in there and talking realistically, it’s not selling, it’s not doing anything. It’s, hey, I have something that is going to make a difference for you and those patients who are on the operating room table every single day. It’s not only them that I think about. I think of their families that are in the waiting room freaking out because they have someone on the operating room table, and I want to make sure that I’m grounded because we’re bringing technology that will make a difference.

So I hope that makes sense. But it’s no more or less than that. It’s that I love coaching, I love team development, I love watching, I love when people shine, and I want to make sure that we’re delivering something that helps patient outcomes.

2. Can you tell us more about your vision for your team at Activ Surgical?

Well again it’s still about the ultimate vision, it’s still about patients and you want to make sure that you’re doing the best that you can to reduce complications for patients. But when you look at the company, we say that from a technical standpoint, we are the computer vision engine of the operating room. So we envision a future of true collaborative or autonomous surgery where surgical intelligence, things that are way above me, can empower folks and robots too.

We’re seeing things that humans can’t see. So we want to make sure that we’re bringing that to the operating room. Our founder, Dr. Peter Kim is brilliant, but Dr. Kim cannot be in every surgery around the world at the same time. Dr. Kim’s information and insights can be, so anytime a doctor is in a surgical procedure, Dr. Kim’s data, as well as a bunch of Dr. Kim’s colleagues and people from all across the industry, crowdsourced data can identify key land mines and landmarks, key areas to cut and if it’s surgery in key areas to avoid, if it’s vessels or something, you can damage. That information needs to be in the hands of doctors because, again, the people part is that every patient in the world should have the confidence that their doctor, whether their surgeon has done one surgery of a specific specialty or five thousand surgeries of that same specialty, every patient should have the trust and confidence that their doctor has the same information available to him or her to make that surgery a success.

You can think about it like driving cars now, and when I think about when I got my license, when I was 16 or 17 year old, if I wanted to back up, I mean, I turned around. If I wanted to look at my side view mirror, I did. But then there was a blind spot, so I’d peek over my shoulder – now a 16 year old can get their driver’s license and they still have to do all of those things, but when they’re in reverse and they’re about to crash into a cone that they can’t see, the car might beep really loud or it may stop some cars, or there might be a big flashing orange light on your side view mirror to tell you that, hey, there’s someone in your blind spot, so that 16 year old is a much better driver today than they were when I first learned. I am still relying on intuition now and experience, but we say the same things in surgery.

So a new surgeon should have the same information available, should have the rearview camera, should have the side view mirror, should have a beeping sound, all these things that can help him or her perform better surgery and that the Peter Kym’s of the world, can be providing them with his or her data. So it’s a broad vision. But at the end of the day, if someone asked me my vision, I wouldn’t normally explain it that long. It’s pretty much a couple of sentences. But for this discussion, I wanted to make sure that I explained it and it’s still all about the patient.

3. I think what I’m really hearing is that you’re making decisions not for yourself, but rather on behalf of the company, and it’s taken on the mindset that, OK, if I’m going to make this decision or spend this money, is it in the best interest of Activ Surgical and what impact will it have on us, the team and the growth of the company itself. Does that resonate with you?

It resonates a lot because you know what? I absolutely believe in rewarding success and celebrating successes and having little milestones, because you can’t just go on and expect the things, you have to call things out. But in your example, Scott. Yeah. So I have one hundred dollars in my budget. OK, actually nobody has anything in their budget. So is there a downside if you didn’t need to spend something that you just saved? Now you’re going to need that one hundred dollars a month and a half from now and you’re going to realize, wow, I’m glad I have this because I was smart in the way I spent my money, and now there’s a huge opportunity, a huge project that I can do. So I think when people realize that you get hired, even first line sellers are called territory managers. You’re managing the territory, you’re representing the company.

Every single day that you walk outside, you represent the company. That question that you asked earlier of being grounded and what makes you grounded every day. But the same thing that ties right back to this, Scott, is that the representation of a company is a big deal, and I also realized this a long time ago, and I always share this in developing any first line regional sales manager or head of marketing or our R&D manager or operations manager for the first time is after your family and close friends, who the single most important person in someone’s life? Whether they think it is or not, is probably their boss because of what that boss potentially can control.

Who controls your livelihood? It controls your job. It controls your raises. It controls whether you’re hired or fired, potentially if you work. So I say that in two ways. Anyone that is a boss of someone, remember when I said you have to earn their respect, get off to earn yours. You want people to run? They’re willing to run through a wall for you because they know that you have their back and it’s a really important position and something that you shouldn’t take lightly when you’re someone’s boss.

I mean, it’s a really big responsibility to be someone’s boss. I’ve always taken it seriously in a good way and I hope people around me have done it as well. I try to remind people of the role that they’re in. They’re not in the boss’s role so they can boss people around or so that they can show off their business card, you know, because I’ve been promoted by the best bosses.

People really want to work for them and like I said, they’ll run through a wall for them. That’s the way I try to think every day about the roles we play and the way that we hire, and in the way that we develop, and the way you should be thinking about business.

If you’re interested in learning more from our other Spotlight Leaders, check out Moncef Lakouas’s take on Leadership is Learning.

Leadership Spotlight: Leading with Intention

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Laura Meyer, the founder of Envision Horizons.

Laura has helped over 150 brands build successful Amazon businesses through her agency and consultancy work. In addition to working with consumer product companies, Laura has a passion for supporting female-founded and mission-driven companies.

In this episode Laura and I dive into intentional leadership and discuss the strategies behind leading with intention.

Communication Is a Two-way Street

Laura Meyer: There absolutely needs to be a two way street of communication. And there’s no question that my company has grown and improved in what we call, leveling up because of the feedback coming from the team. And I always tell new team members on their first day or their first week, don’t be intimidated by me, raise your hand. This is not an organization where we’re going to get upset or yell or do anything. If you have an idea, like, I want to hear the ideas because the reality is I don’t want to have to come up with all the ideas. It’s a lot of work to try and think everything, so perspectives from all levels of an organization are so important to have.

The Big Thing About Intentional Leadership

Laura Meyer: The big thing with intentional leadership and also just growing a business overall, it has to be a part of your company’s goals or initiatives to be good leaders and to put an emphasis on your team. If it’s not a primary focus, then you’re not going to be good at it, plain and simple. It doesn’t just come second nature to all of the leaders within your team. So you also need to think through, okay, how can I give the directors and managers within my organization autonomy in the kind of the subcultures that they want to produce while also having a consistency across the organization? And like everything, it takes work.

The strategies behind Intentional Leadership

Ange MacCabe: When it comes to intentional leadership, it’s really getting strategic about how you’re approaching things, both from the tactical side of things, so creating consistency, but also the human side of things to create continued momentum and create engagement as well.

Leadership EI-Q

Laura Meyer: I also think being a leader, you need to be self aware, knowing what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and what you don’t like doing. I will be very honest, I love people, I’m an extrovert, but I don’t necessarily love managing people and training people. Like, I’m a salesperson at heart. I love driving new business. I love developing new programs. That is what I’m good at and that is what I love to do. So, looking forward to next year, that’s really where I’m designing our org chart and our accountability chart to accommodate. Because I do have a team member who’s wonderful at onboarding and training and making team members feel comfortable.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Dustin DeVries’s Leadership Spotlight on: Facilitating Empowered Teams.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you don’t miss and episode! New episodes of The Human Side of Business Podcast air bi-weekly on Mondays at 1 pm ET.

3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

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What is Intentional Leadership?

Good leaders care about the people they lead. They make sure their teams are clear on goals and objectives and that they are empowered and aligned with the organization’s overall direction.

Intentional leadership is effective in the workplace because it empowers teams with the knowledge and tools they need to meet objectives. When everybody is confident in their role and understands their contribution’s impact on the big picture, it sets leaders and teams up for success.

Why is Intentional Leadership important?

Lack of intention in leadership can cause harm to teams and affect confidence and motivation. Without clear direction, teams can become confused and frustrated, which can negatively impact organizational outcomes.

3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership + Bonus Leadership Self-awareness Checklist(s)

1. Prioritize Personal-development

We’ve all heard the saying: “Leaders are made, not born.” But what does that mean?

Leadership is a skill, not a talent. It’s one thing to have a natural ability to lead, but empowering yourself through continued learning helps leaders guide and inspire others to show up too.

What does it take to be an effective leader? First and foremost, you must be committed to your own personal development. A leader who knows that there is always more to learn and improve upon will be able to help others grow as well.

Personal-development Checklist:

  • Do you know your leadership style?
  • Do you understand the different leadership styles and how they can be adopted for different scenarios?
  • Are you communicating clearly and effectively
  • Are you a self-aware leader?

2. Build Trust

Leading with intention requires leaders to help their teams discover the answers for themselves. Sometimes as a leader, it’s essential to get out of the way – this may seem hard at first!

You might be worried about losing control over what happens next, but this is where leading with intention comes in: Instead of telling your team what to do, ask them what they think is the best course of action. Encourage them to come up with their own solutions. Don’t make decisions for them—instead, guide them to figure it out independently.

It takes practice to let go of your ideas and suggestions. But when it works, it’s beautiful. Teams feel empowered, which motivates and builds trust because they can see their contributions are valued.

Fostering Trust Checklist:

  • Acknowledging your shortcomings (I’m human too)
  • Having your team’s back
  • Proving space for your team to be heard
  • Being proactive vs. reactive
  • Leaving ego at the door when communicating/collaborating
  • Leading with empathy over judgment

3. Engage and Show Interest

Good leaders know the value of taking an interest in their teams.

Team connection is about more than status reports and delegation. Taking an interest in your team members individually helps you understand their talents, motivations, and goals and can build respect between you and them. Respect is a huge motivator for both parties and can be huge for productivity!

This is especially true for employees who are not just seeking a salary but also fulfillment and job satisfaction.

Fostering Engagement Checklist:

  • Understanding the needs of your team
  • Asking questions/staying curious
  • Carving out time for routine check-in’s with team members
  • Identify/acknowledging your team members working styles
    • Who likes to work fast and requires communication that is direct?
    • Who is more methodical and needs time to understand and plan before starting a task.

On the surface intentional leadership seems simple: It’s creating a plan and effectively communicating it to a team of people to execute. However from the leadership lens intentional leadership is much more nuanced than that. It’s actually a layering of hard and soft skills that require training and development, and well…the intention to do so.

Are you interested in developing your skills to become an intentional/human-centric leader? Check out our Whole Person Leadership Cohort info page to learn more.