We're a Family vs We're a Team.

You often hear the term “we’re a family!” thrown around in the small business world. 

It’s an endearing phrase that sums up the idea of a lovely, supportive company culture.

I used the same phrase when I was starting out.

But after a while, I found myself at a point of conflict.

Supporting people above all else began to result in accepting mediocre results for the good of the person at the expense of the customer, our team and the business.

It caused all sorts of issues…

• Accepting a lower standard than I wanted.
• Having to mediate between employees to keep the peace.
• Having to cover for someone if they dropped the ball with a customer.

It started to get under my skin…

So I decided to scratch the term and look for a better model.

When you think about it, families are built on acceptance, emotion and enduring relationships.

When you apply that to business, the result can sometimes lead to conflict biases, irrational decision making and complacency.

At the time I was having trouble with this, I stumbled across a book about the Netflix story - No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer.

It talked about the idea of building high-performance teams instead.

It was like a lightbulb went off in my brain. 

This concept appealed to me so much more because high-performance teams are united by a common purpose or goal, which helps to foster a sense of collective responsibility, accountability, and alignment.

It was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. And since then I’ve read a bunch more books on the topic to help me implement the idea.

This shift has been a key component behind the success of my business because it helps to increase productivity, boost employee engagement, and ultimately drive business growth.

But right before I made the switch, I was worried that I’d become less connected to my team.

The whole idea of teams felt a bit cold when compared to the idea of family.

Thankfully, none of that was a problem. Becoming more objective helped to see things more clearly and offer the right support instead of covering for them with excuses.

We’ve had a few years now to figure out what works best for us, and today I want to share three things that helped us begin the transition.

Let's dive in. 

1. Set The Direction

It still blows my mind how many business leaders have no clue what direction they’re hustling in.

It means they don’t have a compelling vision that other people can get behind.

I was the same in a few of my previous businesses. 

The idea was small and therefore the opportunities I attracted were also small.

With the bakery, I came at it differently. I knew I didn’t want it to be tiny. 

I talked about solving huge challenges from the start and by nature, we were hungry for growth.

In my experience, there’s been very little downside to thinking bigger. 

Once you do, commit your vision, mission and values to paper.

Then share it with your team over and over again.

2. Agree On Behaviours

Families accept a mixed bag of behaviours.

But successful businesses can’t operate like that.

Write down what you stand for, and what behaviours you absolutely won't accept. 

It helped me to look at all the negative behaviours first. For some reason they’re easier to recall than positive onest.

I went back to all the times I had to fire someone, or had negative reviews about something and wrote a list of things that led to that.

Then I reframed it into a positive and wrote them into a printable document for recruiting and briefing for the existing team.

But the most powerful thing I did with them was bring to life by praising people in line with them.

3. Connect The Dots

Once you’ve set the direction, it’s your job to connect the dots between your big goals and the daily actions your team must take to get you there. 

This leadership practice helps your team to see exactly how their contribution will impact the company (or the world). 

And the most effective way I’ve found to do this is by using yearly/quarterly themes.

I first learned about quarterly themes in a book called Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. 

It’s an excellent read if you’re looking to grow a big business and need help with systems to get there.

The idea of themes resonated because in the past we’d often faced a crisis as a company.

And during those times we’d pull together and take massive action towards overcoming an imminent challenge. 

It was things like our start-up phase, competitors moving in, a pandemic, and moving our bakery across town without impacting production.

During those moments, the team had a clear and measurable thing to focus on. 

The energy was electrifying and we naturally moved in the right direction and crushed our goals.

Quarterly themes do the same job without the crisis (unless you create one).

Here’s an example of one we used that was super effective. 

Two years ago we were losing money after becoming inefficient during the pandemic.

So we created a quarterly theme to gamify the process of finding spare minutes in our organisation. 

We called it ONE HOT MINUTE

Every individual on the team was asked to contribute ideas that would save someone at least 1 minute per day. 

Of course, no one stopped at just 1 minute…

As a company, we found thousands of minutes through workspace redesigns, changes to processes and dropping things that weren’t productive.

I won’t go into detail because I’ve written about it previously.

But my point is, that using yearly themes has transformed our culture of accountability. 

The entire team becomes aligned and solves a common goal in their own unique way with specific metrics.

And it’s a big step in the right direction for building a high-performance team instead of a family.

At the end of the day, the best teams get ahead because everyone knows their role and the role of others, understands what winning looks like, and respects the value that each member brings to the game.

It's one the individual to play their role at the highest standard for the good of the team or you need to substitute them for someone who can perform better - It's about the team.

And that's one of the hardest things to get your head around when it's family.

It's such a big topic, I hope we get a chance to go into it in more detail one day.

In the meantime, keep pushing to improve your culture and build something incredible together.