Dan Martell - How to Build a High Performing Team

00:00:00.000 To the degree that you develop yourself,

00:00:02.160 you'll be able to lead and build more people.

00:00:18.000 What's up everybody, Dan here.

00:00:19.320 Today I wanna talk about the fact

00:00:21.040 that I believe leaders build people.

00:00:23.700 People always talk about what is leadership?

00:00:25.200 What does it mean to be a leader?

00:00:27.200 And my definition is that person has folks

00:00:31.440 that report to them and those people are developing

00:00:34.140 and growing and you can clearly see

00:00:37.280 that they're becoming better for having worked with you.

00:00:40.220 I know that's been true for me.

00:00:41.600 So I don't know if you have direct reports,

00:00:43.340 maybe you have one and you're nervous

00:00:44.760 and you're hoping that they like ya

00:00:46.760 and that you don't lose them and all these different fears.

00:00:49.160 But the truth is, is you wanna be somebody

00:00:51.360 that they look up to, that they look as somebody

00:00:54.740 that they admire, that you put them in a position

00:00:58.080 to stretch them outside their comfort zone,

00:00:59.800 but give them the support, not leave them hanging.

00:01:03.260 And when I was 21, I learned this

00:01:05.040 from an incredible mentor of mine,

00:01:07.080 this guy named Darcy Degala,

00:01:09.260 who was essentially the technical lead

00:01:11.780 at this oil company called Syncrude Oil

00:01:14.700 up in Fort McMurray, Alberta, okay?

00:01:17.460 And fun little story, when I first met Darcy,

00:01:21.160 it was the day before I was trying

00:01:22.920 to give myself my own little haircut.

00:01:24.960 And I accidentally caught a nick

00:01:26.860 and went too high on the sideburns.

00:01:28.260 Maybe you guys can relate to this.

00:01:30.080 And I ended up going so high that I,

00:01:33.600 there was only one option is to shave my whole head.

00:01:35.820 So I show up at the college

00:01:39.200 because Darcy had put the training that day offsite.

00:01:42.560 First day ever meeting him,

00:01:44.660 shaved head, wearing a plaid red dress shirt,

00:01:49.280 tucked into khaki pants that were way too big for me,

00:01:52.080 wearing dress shoes, because I used to be a skater,

00:01:55.020 and I didn't really want to wear dress pants,

00:01:57.440 but I was trying to put my best foot forward. 0.98

00:01:59.260 And literally, I looked like the most ridiculous person ever. 0.89

00:02:03.080 And I remember Darcy opened the door, 0.97

00:02:05.120 looks at me, looks me up and down,

00:02:07.660 and just kind of gave this like, oh man, kind of scenario.

00:02:11.280 And the reason why is because I was only 21,

00:02:14.660 and I think he thought he hired somebody

00:02:16.020 that was more like 35.

00:02:17.800 And the whole point of me being hired by Syncrude

00:02:21.240 as a consultant back then was to help them build

00:02:23.760 and deploy their enterprise portal software.

00:02:26.360 So what Darcy did is he gave me two weeks

00:02:29.940 to figure this out.

00:02:30.780 I went and I got a library card.

00:02:32.180 I showed up every day.

00:02:33.960 I learned about Gantt charts.

00:02:35.100 I learned about statements of work.

00:02:36.200 I learned about project management.

00:02:37.700 And eventually I became a pretty good project manager

00:02:41.540 and leader of this portal deployment.

00:02:44.340 But what I learned through this process

00:02:46.820 of working with Darcy that I didn't even take notes of

00:02:51.240 Literally, I like look back and realize

00:02:53.320 there was so much opportunity for me to learn even more,

00:02:56.660 but I wasn't even aware of it at the time.

00:02:58.660 And I just want you to know, maybe you work on a team

00:03:00.620 or you are leading somebody and you're not even aware

00:03:03.220 of the impact that you could be having on this person.

00:03:05.980 Cause I know that's true for me.

00:03:07.380 When I think back at Darcy, I've messaged him every year

00:03:09.960 for the last 20 some years and said, thank you.

00:03:13.120 And he laughs, he always smiles.

00:03:14.940 You don't have to say that.

00:03:16.480 Like, I don't know what you think I did.

00:03:17.980 And I'll tell you what he did, man.

00:03:19.740 and he showed me what it meant to lead people.

00:03:21.880 He showed me what it meant to build the people

00:03:24.620 and the people build the business.

00:03:26.140 He showed me what it meant to lead with compassion,

00:03:28.920 to manage expectations, to ask world-class questions,

00:03:33.340 all these things.

00:03:34.380 And I wanna distill the three things

00:03:36.940 that I seen a true leader do and influence a 21-year-old

00:03:42.180 that's become the person who's created multiple companies

00:03:45.500 where I sit today and have the fortune

00:03:48.100 of leading 100 people across all my organizations

00:03:52.260 and I've probably been involved in hiring

00:03:54.520 close to 1,000 people at this point in my career.

00:03:57.580 The first thing is that he made problems my solution, right?

00:04:01.940 And here's what I mean by that.

00:04:03.780 I remember one time there was this problem

00:04:05.500 we were dealing with and Darcy asked me

00:04:08.020 to come into his office and he was asking me

00:04:11.520 about my thoughts around this problem

00:04:13.220 and I was listening to him.

00:04:15.380 And he's so funny the way he did this.

00:04:17.340 Again, it's only in retrospect,

00:04:19.380 like after I look back and I go,

00:04:21.160 oh, that little fricker, this is what he was doing. 0.96

00:04:23.560 He'd be like, Dan, what do you think we should do here?

00:04:26.520 And I was like, oh, he wants my opinion, I would tell him.

00:04:28.860 And then he would jump out of his chair

00:04:31.120 and he would go to the whiteboard

00:04:32.360 and he would start drawing,

00:04:33.720 but he would like put some stuff up there,

00:04:36.100 but it wasn't like actually accurate.

00:04:38.480 And then I'd be like, no, you shouldn't do it like that.

00:04:40.580 You should do it like this.

00:04:41.420 And then he would turn and he would give me the marker.

00:04:45.040 And then I would go to the whiteboard

00:04:46.460 and I would draw some stuff and some ideas.

00:04:48.560 And he'd go, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

00:04:49.900 So, and then what would you do with this?

00:04:52.200 Well, I'd probably do this.

00:04:53.320 And what would the timeline be?

00:04:54.620 Well, I think if we did this,

00:04:55.700 the timeline could be like that.

00:04:56.800 And who would you need to make it work?

00:04:58.380 And then he'd do this and like, you know,

00:05:00.560 I'd draw some names and he'd go, okay, I like that.

00:05:03.180 So that's what you can do.

00:05:05.060 Like you're committing to that.

00:05:06.520 And I'm like, yeah, I think that's what we should do.

00:05:08.460 And he's like, you're committing to that.

00:05:09.900 I'm like, yeah, I'm committing to that.

00:05:10.820 He's like, awesome, let's do that.

00:05:13.080 In hindsight, the dozen plus times he's made me do this,

00:05:18.320 I realized that what he was doing was getting me

00:05:22.440 to sell him on the vision he already had,

00:05:26.080 but he wanted me to make it my solution.

00:05:28.800 He never told me what to do.

00:05:31.080 He said, here's my big problem.

00:05:33.880 Let's take a blank piece of paper

00:05:35.360 and let's draw a picture together.

00:05:37.320 And he would fumble on his drawing to make me,

00:05:40.560 force me to get up there and clean it up

00:05:43.380 because he wanted to make it my idea.

00:05:45.660 And that idea of making it my solution

00:05:48.860 was such a big thing when I think of like how I lead today

00:05:52.040 where I focus on outcomes, not tasks.

00:05:54.940 I don't tell people what to do.

00:05:56.040 I said, this is the problem we're trying to solve.

00:05:58.320 How would you solve it?

00:05:59.820 What are your thoughts?

00:06:00.760 What do you think that would work?

00:06:01.980 What would the timeline be?

00:06:02.820 So leading through questions, super important idea.

00:06:05.500 The other one, the second thing is to have fun.

00:06:09.180 You know, like as I shoot these videos with Sam, okay?

00:06:12.740 Sam's in the studio right now

00:06:14.240 and he's watching me shoot these videos.

00:06:16.040 We have some fun.

00:06:17.480 We tell some jokes.

00:06:19.040 We laugh.

00:06:20.740 We tell stories.

00:06:21.960 We, you know, get caught up on each other's lives.

00:06:24.800 It's not just about the work

00:06:26.480 because what Darcy knew that I didn't appreciate

00:06:29.260 back then as a 21 year old

00:06:31.120 is that people want to work on teams

00:06:34.560 where they feel like it's fun and exciting.

00:06:38.400 And it's not just about, yes, I have to feel like

00:06:41.340 I'm building towards something bigger.

00:06:43.320 But the truth is, are these people kind?

00:06:45.980 Do they make me laugh?

00:06:47.200 I have this guy, Michael, on my team.

00:06:49.080 He makes me laugh.

00:06:50.480 He like, one day we were doing this exercise

00:06:52.220 and I said, the person with the longest hair goes first.

00:06:54.360 And he goes, hair, hair, or facial hair?

00:06:57.860 Which is just a funny thing because he's got a big beard.

00:07:00.260 I like that.

00:07:01.420 I like my buddy, Ryan, who's always cracking jokes.

00:07:05.380 I mean, we jump on board meetings

00:07:06.920 and the first thing he's doing is he's blasting ACDC.

00:07:10.260 Or before you notice, you turn around

00:07:12.580 and he's changed his profile image

00:07:14.480 to somebody else's on the meetings,

00:07:16.360 like image of them working out over the weekend

00:07:18.360 with their face all sweaty that they posted on Facebook.

00:07:21.140 And like, he just changes it.

00:07:22.800 And then everybody's like staring at it, laughing,

00:07:25.380 going, is that Mark?

00:07:26.960 Like, is that, what is Ryan doing?

00:07:28.720 And it's just funny.

00:07:29.740 It's stuff like that.

00:07:30.520 It's like, I really think when I was starting off in business,

00:07:33.660 I was so serious and I was so focused on outcomes.

00:07:36.920 and you could argue today that I'm still like this,

00:07:39.800 but I also realize you gotta have some fun,

00:07:42.760 you gotta tell some jokes, you gotta keep it light,

00:07:45.420 you gotta remember that there's real people

00:07:47.560 on the other end and if they don't enjoy coming to work

00:07:49.700 and working with the people that they interact with,

00:07:52.640 that they're not gonna enjoy it.

00:07:54.440 When I work with my lawyers and my finance team

00:07:56.980 or other vendors and contractors, I always remind myself,

00:08:00.440 I'm one of a dozen of their clients

00:08:02.060 and I want them to have the most fun on our meetings

00:08:04.480 and if they have the most fun on our meetings

00:08:06.700 that they're gonna think about my problems

00:08:08.820 when they're working out at the gym

00:08:10.700 or driving to work or whatever they're doing

00:08:12.960 because I'm the top of their like ideas of like,

00:08:18.180 they're like, oh, I like this person.

00:08:19.700 I wanna see them do well.

00:08:20.940 I think that's a really cool idea.

00:08:22.180 So having fun, Darcy definitely showed me

00:08:24.080 because he was always cracking jokes,

00:08:25.560 making fun of people, you know,

00:08:27.260 celebrating birthdays, et cetera, having fun.

00:08:29.580 And then the third thing is, you know,

00:08:32.100 learning how to solve problems.

00:08:34.360 This is the thing that even to today,

00:08:37.440 I was just on a call with somebody on my team

00:08:39.980 trying to deconstruct the challenge they were facing

00:08:43.520 and how to fix it.

00:08:45.520 And one of the things Darcy that was big on

00:08:48.100 was essentially like corporate training

00:08:50.960 and learning and development inside of his teams.

00:08:54.280 And he hired this company called Kempner Trago

00:08:58.620 to teach us root cause analysis.

00:09:00.920 RCA is the industry term.

00:09:02.780 we're an oil company, safety standards

00:09:05.160 and gauges and switches, and they had this like

00:09:08.900 very methodal, you know, like process-driven training

00:09:12.820 for root cause analysis,

00:09:13.900 because when you're dealing with oil and reactors

00:09:16.260 and separations and chemical processes,

00:09:18.220 like you kinda gotta figure out some really like

00:09:21.420 obscure things that are happening

00:09:23.100 inside these like complex processes.

00:09:26.260 And so he had access, and he would send us on this training

00:09:28.740 and spend thousands of dollars.

00:09:30.780 And what he taught me that I didn't know

00:09:33.340 as a 21, 22 year old was the idea of how to solve problems,

00:09:37.520 of being able to isolate constants,

00:09:41.140 of running experiments, of troubleshooting,

00:09:45.640 and like making sure that you're not playing

00:09:47.660 a game of whack-a-mole.

00:09:48.900 And it's not necessarily about, you know,

00:09:51.340 was Kempner Trago the right training?

00:09:53.280 It was awesome.

00:09:55.280 The big idea is I think any leader

00:09:59.440 that can teach their team how to solve problems,

00:10:02.520 not just solve the problem, but teach them the process,

00:10:06.640 the thinking, the best practices,

00:10:08.680 the methodology around solving problems,

00:10:12.260 to essentially teach their team to fish,

00:10:15.000 that is one of the most beautiful things

00:10:17.580 that I think you could pass along to anybody

00:10:20.520 that you have the privilege to lead.

00:10:22.580 And that will always stand out for me,

00:10:24.880 is that if you ask me like,

00:10:28.160 Dan, what's the thing I should be teaching my team?

00:10:30.840 It's teach them how you solve problems,

00:10:32.500 because I guarantee there's something you do

00:10:35.600 that's unique, not even I would probably do,

00:10:37.880 that's a process or approach to how you think

00:10:39.980 about solving problems that you just take for granted.

00:10:43.100 And I love that Darcy taught me.

00:10:44.740 He's like, no, we're gonna formalize this.

00:10:47.160 I'm gonna hire somebody that I respect,

00:10:49.060 that I've trained with, that I trust,

00:10:51.140 and I'm gonna have them teach my team,

00:10:54.380 obviously selfishly so that we could all be better for him,

00:10:56.960 But the truth is that he also knew for the rest of life,

00:11:00.640 these people exposed to this process

00:11:03.520 are gonna be better at their job,

00:11:05.320 they're gonna be better for their teams,

00:11:06.580 they're gonna be better at whatever company

00:11:08.060 they end up working for.

00:11:09.560 And to me, that is the sign of a leader,

00:11:12.980 is teaching the principles behind an outcome,

00:11:16.180 not just teaching the thing that you need them to do.

00:11:19.380 So those are the big ideas that I give a lot of gratitude,

00:11:22.680 or I have a lot of gratitude for Darcy

00:11:24.120 around making it my solution, you know,

00:11:27.100 teaching me how to whiteboard

00:11:28.540 and come up with the solution

00:11:29.920 and then getting me to own it

00:11:31.320 and having fun along the journey

00:11:33.480 and having, doing the birthday celebration

00:11:36.500 and the dress up for Halloween

00:11:39.340 and just all these fun little quirky things

00:11:42.020 that they, he would do.

00:11:43.300 And finally teaching me an invaluable skill

00:11:46.620 like solving problems that's applied

00:11:48.240 to my personal life and my professional life

00:11:50.380 and nonprofits I'm involved in.

00:11:52.680 There's still literally things that I teach today

00:11:55.080 to all of you, and I just think that that idea

00:11:58.140 of leaders build people, and then there's this philosophy

00:12:02.660 called the law of the lid, and to the degree

00:12:04.240 that you develop yourself, you'll be able to lead

00:12:06.920 and build more people.

00:12:08.340 So that's the big idea.

00:12:09.340 I hope you found it useful, and as per usual,

00:12:11.700 I wanna challenge you to live a bigger life

00:12:14.420 and a bigger business, and I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - April 25, 2022

How to Build a High Performing Team

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