Working In A Team Environment – Lindsey Graves
working in a team environment
SUMMARY
Lindsey is the COO of Sunset Transportation, an Inc. 100 listed business. On this episode, she talks about creating a culture that’s about winning and family and how to drive out conflict situations.
When your people feel a sense of community in the workplace, they feel empowered, and they can thrive and serve in a big way.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Having a sense of a family environment in a workplace means sharing, togetherness, and openness.Celebrate your success and be open to what’s going on.
Make the entire organization feels part of any success and fun to drive the momentum forward.
Strong leaders need to realize they’re leading by example.
Acknowledge the things you’re not good at and use it as an opportunity to point out a team member who can fill those missing pieces.
Solicit feedback from other and make sure that feedback is getting utilized.
Millennials are looking for regular feedback and for what they can do to drive the organization forward because they want to be a part of that.
The incentive plan for team performance forces the team to drive out a lot of conflict situations and work together.
Do supervisor training to empower the next level of understanding that they have the capability to squash any situations quickly and to speak up.
Help your people understand that you’ve been in their shoes. This allows them to see there’s a career for them in the future.
Until you’re an example for others, others won’t follow you, and they won’t want to take your leadership.
TRANSCRIPTION: WORKING IN A TEAM ENVIRONMENT – LINDSEY GRAVES
Luis Congdon
Hey, Thriving Launchers.
Today, we’re going to be sitting down with an Inc. 100 listed business, Sunset Transportation to talk about how do you create a culture in your business that helps everybody feel at home, and even feel a sense of community so when they come to work so your company can thrive, grow, innovate, and serve in a big way? Why are the benefits of working in a team environment?
Kamala Chambers
Hey, today, we’re here with Lindsey Graves. She is the COO of Sunset Transportation, an Inc. 100 listed company to talk about the importance of working in a team environment.
Luis Congdon
All right, Thriving Launchers, we are here with Lindsey Graves.
Lindsey, are you ready to launch?
Lindsey Graves
I am ready.
Luis Congdon
Hey, listen!
Thriving Launchers, this company has done some fantastic stuff in regards to growth, creating an incredible culture that has allowed them to have better retention of staff, grow quickly, and serve in a big way. They understand why it is essential for their people to be working in a team environment.
One of the things, Lindsey, that you were saying before this interview is one of the critical elements for you guys has been creating a culture, a particular type environment for your staff and everybody that works with you. It’s an element where people are given a chance to be working in a team environment.
Can you tell me a little bit about that to kick us off?
Lindsey Graves
Absolutely.
Working In A Team Environment And Creating The Sense Of Family Environment
Lindsey Graves
With our culture, it is about winning, and about family. We are a privately-held company, started by my father almost 30 years ago. Since day one, we could create that sense of family environment. What that means is sharing, togetherness, openness, just feeling you’re family at home and work. That is what working in a team environment is to us.
We can do that from day one, and as part of the organization from a young age, I saw my father interact with the associates and how close relationships he grew and built.
Working In A Team Environment – Share And Win Together
Lindsey Graves
As I got more involved with the organization over the past years, I’ve tried to drive that same culture throughout the organization.
It’s not just about feeling like you’re with your family at work, but it’s also about sharing and winning together.
We celebrate our success. We’re very open with what’s going on and our goals. It is an organization that has a clear understanding of the goals of the company. It’s only going to be an organization that’s going to want to try to get there together.
That’s been extremely helpful in creating that environment to develop a sense of winning environment and celebrating those goals by doing different things.
Working In A Team Environment – The Entire Organization Feels Part Of Any Success And Fun
Lindsey Graves
There are food days or taking the organization to do some event after hours or happy hours. You name it. We make sure the entire organization feels part of any success or any fun to drive that culture and the momentum forward.
Kamala Chambers
I’d love to hear a tip from you on how business owners can create more family close winning culture on a day to day basis to make their people enjoy working in a team environment?
Lindsey Graves
I think I take it for granted because it’s a lot of just I think who I am as a person to care about people I work with, and genuinely care, but I think that is a big part of what makes us successful.
Working In A Team Environment Is About Caring About People Your Work With
Lindsey Graves
I lead by example, so I understand that every day when I walk in, no matter how I feel, I am leading by example to the organization, and they see, and they pick up from me how I’m feeling.
If I come in with a frown in the face and don’t feel like I have a lot of energy or whatnot, it’s not going to do others well to try and move us forward.
Working In A Team Environment – Lead By Example
Lindsey Graves
Regardless of how I’m feeling, I always make sure I am energetic and passionate and genuinely showing that I care and I’m listening. I’m not sitting there thinking about what I’m going to say when I’m speaking to somebody. I’m genuinely listening to their input and soliciting their feedback and making sure that I am always trying to encourage others to think and have the ability to make decisions on their own, and then working together as a team to collaborate to come to the best choice in anything we do.
I think that strong leaders need to realize that you’re leading by example. If you’re leaving and going to play golf one day early after work, sure you’ve earned it, but it’s still setting a reflection on your organization to others. If you wouldn’t want others to have the same thoughts, you need to be thoughtful about what you’re doing.
Working In A Team Environment – Bridge The Gap Between Employees
Luis Congdon
One of the things I’ve experienced a lot at work, especially as being in upper management and having every single role is when I’ve worked in management, I would feel a disconnect. I wanted to connect and feel familial and friendly with the staff, but I knew what it was like to be in the shoes of a grunt worker, just at the bottom of the mill so to speak, and I knew there was this fear of people to connect with me.
I’m curious. How do you bridge that gap, so people are a little bit more open or do connect with you, so they’re working in a team environment?
Lindsey Graves
That’s a good question because there’s that fine line of connecting too much that people think you’re their friend or not connecting enough where they feel like you’re unapproachable.
Working In A Team Environment – Know Your Strength and Weaknesses
Lindsey Graves
Like I was saying before, I am not scared as a leader to be myself. That means being completely okay with acknowledging the things that I am not good at. Also, you can use that as an opportunity to point out a team member of mine who I will give full credit, always call out, and say that I’m thankful for them for the organization, or we are grateful for them for filling such a huge piece of our team and our void.
I think leading by that example of being open and sharing where my strengths and weaknesses are, and making sure that my team understands they fill those pieces of the organization, and then as a group together, we make a holistic company, has helped shape me as a leader seem more approachable I think.
Working In A Team Environment – Utilize Feedbacks
Lindsey Graves
And then, the other thing too is like I said, is soliciting feedback from others, and listening to what they have to say, and then making sure that as a team, that feedback is getting utilized. It’s not just so that you’re going through the emotions. It’s that you genuinely care about what your team says and that you make sure you put some of it into action so that they see that they have an impact towards the greater good of the company.
Care about what your team says and put some of it into action, so they see they have an impact towards the greater good of the company.
Luis Congdon
Lindsey, it’s immediately apparent. Talking to you before the interview and speaking with you know live on air, one of the things I’m getting from you is how important it is for you to acknowledge your team, to be inclusive, and for people to be working in a team environment.
Working In A Team Environment – Acknowledge Your Team
Luis Congdon
I remember reading a study that talked about how much employees and staff members need to be acknowledged by upper management. I recall the statistics saying like four or seven pieces of compliments or acknowledgments almost every single day being incredibly important to your productivity. That goes against some of the cutthroat CEOs that I’ve met and business owners who say, “I don’t care about how I turn over rates, and I’m going to yell at people.” I know that can be popular.
However, what I get from you and it’s something that makes me thrilled to work at a company like yours is to have an environment where I’m valued.
Importance Of Engagement In Working In A Team Environment
Lindsey Graves
Absolutely.
That’s interesting you’re talking about this because we are going through some of this right now in doing an engagement study.
Engagement is critical to an organization’s success and in a service business like we’re in.
Lindsey Graves
We’ve always done yearly workplace surveys to figure out where we’re doing well and where we can improve, but this year, we engaged within an engagement survey company that will interview us quarterly and help get specific drivers of where we need help, and coach us through how to do so in those areas.
One of the most significant areas we learned in a department we had was regarding a manager that was a baby boomer who’s managing some millennials. I thought it was fascinating to hear the coach talk about how baby boomers came from an area where you didn’t have to hear how you were doing. You didn’t need to hear that you were doing a good job. If you didn’t hear anything, it meant that you were doing what you needed to do, and nobody needed to tell you otherwise. Their style was more abrupt and more abrasive like you were talking about the CEOs that can yell or what not.
Working In A Team Environment – Provide Millennials With Regular Feedback
Lindsey Graves
What we’re learning or what I’ve learned as I do more and more of this engagement work is that millennials are looking to hear how they’re doing. They’re looking for regular feedback, and they’re looking for what they can do to drive the organization forward because they want to be a part of that.
It’s been an exciting area for my father and me as the founder of our organization to be very much from that style of leadership, and then to have my style of leadership, which is different. It’s become more and more apparent throughout this process, and it’s helped me honestly hearing from this engagement coach to be able to deal with even my father and his style, and how we work together.
Working In A Team Environment Through Your Leadership Style
Lindsey Graves
I try to keep that in mind, and I think it’s going to stick with me forever that the times were just different, and you have to realize how to work with all different types of people through your leadership style.
Kamala Chambers
One thing I’m curious to hear from you because as we get closer to humans, it’s our nature that conflict can come up as the closer you get. Maybe in a corporate environment, everybody is more standoffish, but if you’re creating this family-like culture, I’m sure it’s more potential for conflict to come up.
I’d love to hear how you resolve that or some things you have experienced that have helped move people through that.
Lindsey Graves
That’s a good question, conflict.
I guess in any business conflict comes up, and you want to help the amount of push-pull, especially in our business, which is a brokerage environment. It’s fast-paced, fast-moving, and it’s competitive, so conflict comes up.
Working In A Team Environment – Have Clarity Of Each Team Member’s Role
Lindsey Graves
To backtrack, it goes all the way back to the foundation of any associate’s role. Having a good clear understanding of their foundation or position or job description, having a lot of clarity of what is expected from them, and then also some clarity around how they’re measured.
We have a clear incentive plan, which we’ve spent a lot of time year after year making tweaks to get it and as perfect as possible.
Now, that’s not going to drive out any conflict completely, but what it does is that it has components to it. Not just for individual performance, but for team performance.
Working In A Team Environment – Provide Incentive Plan For Team Performance
Lindsey Graves
What I want to point out by the incentive plan is that team performance portion forces the team to drive out a lot of those conflict situations and work together.
You’ll find that if you’re compensating people stronger as a team versus individually, they’re naturally going to be pulling and pushing together. Pulling together to make sure they are getting to the bottom of an issue among themselves, and squashing it, and moving on to go on and make more or to do whatever they needed to do to get the job done.
Working In A Team Environment – Organize Training
Lindsey Graves
That’s helped keep a lot of it at the low level, and if something does develop, we make sure we have invested in our supervisors and doing supervisor training to empower that next level of understanding that they do have the capability to squash any situations quickly. That they do have the ability and the leadership role to make sure they’re speaking up.
Then, it’s also expected of them as a leader and as a supervisor to stand up and make sure that any situations are quickly squashed. Then, we move those situations off of what we call the ‘brokerage four’ and into a private room where we then discuss them and deal with them, and never let anything as best as possible because it doesn’t make the situation any better.
Kamala Chambers
That’s powerful.
I’m glad you shared that, and I know it’s a vulnerable topic sometimes, but it sounds like you guys find a way that works beautifully, and that you tackle it head-on.
Before we go, I’d just love to hear from you if there’s any last tip or gem you want to leave the Thriving Launchers with that they can start applying some of this stuff so they can enjoy working in a team environment?
Lindsey Graves
Wow! I could go in many different directions.
Honestly, I think my biggest takeaway for everybody about working in a team environment would be just to lead by example.
Working In A Team Environment – Relate To Your Team Directly
Lindsey Graves
There’s nothing more powerful than being able to have a conversation with somebody that you manage and be able to relate to them directly.
Help them understand that you’ve been in their shoes, and you’ve done that role and the challenges that you faced when you were in that position.
When they are able to look at you in your role and see that path that you’ve gone through in your career, that only hopes them to see that there’s a career for them in the future with the organization you’re within, but that also you can make an impact in their role because you’ve also done it.
Leading by example I think is powerful and I think it’s easy to be done. I hope everyone feels the same way.
Luis Congdon
Lindsey, it’s been fantastic to have you on the show.
Thriving Launchers, what a great reminder Lindsey has left us with. That is to lead by example.
Reminds me of a great talk when I went and listened to John Maxwell speak live somewhere here in Seattle at one of the large stadiums. One of the things he said is if you want to be a leader, you need to be an example. It’s because until you’re an example for others, others won’t follow you, and they won’t want to take your leadership.
It’s a great reminder Lindsey, and allowing people to be working in a team environment is a great tool to grow your business by being a leader.
So with that Thriving Launchers, I hope we got something out of the show, and we’ll see you in the next episode. Keep thriving you all.
