Leveraging Team Strengths for Innovation and Success

Welcome back to Be A Better Leader. I'm Dr. AJ Lee, a manager on our customer success team and learning implementation strategist at FranklinCovey, the world's most trusted leadership company. I'm thrilled to welcome back Stephen M.

R. Covey, bestselling author of The Speed of Trust, The One Thing That Changes Everything, and the newly released Trust and Inspire book to talk about how you as a leader can leverage the trust you've built with your team to drive innovation and success during a change. Stephen, it's so great to have you back. Hey, thanks, AJ.

I'm delighted to be back and especially to have this chance to talk to you. Yes, yes. Thank you. So Stephen, how does trust impact the ability of teams to leverage their strengths and the diversity of the experiences and insights of their team members in order to drive innovation.

Yes. Well, if you think about it, innovation is a team sport. And especially today with the way that we're organized and structured, it's a team sport. And so to really tap into the power of a team and what a team can do, you need trust.

Also, innovation comes about when we have differences that are really, when we value those differences, become the source of our strength. And so I like to put it this way, that differences are our strengths when people trust each other. because it enables us to value the difference and to tap into the different perspective, experience, all the different mindsets and representation, just different ways that we see the world differently in a way that can become creative, collaborative, innovative, and create something more than we could on our own.

But without trust, it's harder to do that, to really value those differences and to see them as strengths. With trust, it's the natural byproduct. And so it's foundational to the kind of culture for innovation to take place is to start with trust. There's other things we got to do to innovate.

But when you start with the foundation of trust, the reason that that is so vital for the innovation is because it is valuing those differences that is the source of strength that becomes the source of innovation. And so, but trust is the starting point to really get there. So, it's a team sport. And to play a team sport, you got to have trust.

Yes, yes. Oh, absolutely. And I love that you're comparing it to a team sport in that approach, understanding the strengths and the differences of one another when we trust each other. A little bit about my background, I was a gymnast through college and moving from an individual sport growing up to lean into a collaboration at the college level.

I definitely felt that as well, how important it is to lean on the experiences, the talents, whatever that individual was able to bring to the table in order to really grow our score, to establish and run more efficiently as a team. So I just think that that statement, differences of our strengths, or sorry, our strengths when we trust each other really help make that difference. So, so good, so good. Absolutely.

And then the converse is true that, and while differences are strange when we trust each other, when we don't trust each other, we're sometimes suspicious about differences. And that can get in the way then of building that kind of trust that we want. So again, I know there's a whole lot of things we need to do to innovate, but there's strong data that shows if you start with trust, you'll get there farther faster. Absolutely.

So on the other hand, right? So differences are our strengths when we trust each other how do differences among team members potentially hinder innovation and cause a low trust working environment Yeah they can hinder if we go into the situation and say, oh, you're different than me. You see the world different than me in whatever way. If we kind of stay with just tribal trust, if you will, where we trust those that are like us, but don't necessarily extend that trust to those who aren't like us and see the world differently, then we're not tapping into the fact that really it might be in the very differences is what's going to create the synergy, the innovation.

And Robert Porter Lynch is an innovation specialist. And here's what he says about where innovation comes from. He says, innovation flourishes when there is a collision of differences in an environment of trust. So a collision or interplay of differences in an environment of trust.

And the idea is this, the greater the contrast in those differences, the greater the potential in the innovation. but when there's differences that that collide or interplay in an environment of distrust it often devolves to rather than valuing the differences it can move to sometimes suspicion where we don't value the differences but in some cases are even fearful of differences we don't embrace them and we're not tapping into what could be our greatest strength which is that synergy one plus one equaling three ten a hundred or more comes from differences coming together in an environment of trust where there's you know because i see the world differently than you and you see the world differently than me together we create something better than either of us could on our own.

But we got to value each other, value those differences, value each other. Trust is the key to doing that versus having it be suspicious. So what happens, again, I'll give you one more thought. What happens when there's suspicion instead of trust, we can often move into, I call these the five metastasizing cancers that get in the way of teams, relationships, cultures when we don't trust each other.

And there are five C's, competing, contending, complaining, comparing, criticizing. And it's easy to fall in the trap of those five C's when we're suspicious of each other, don't trust each other. We compete, contend, compare, Criticize. Complain.

That's not going to lead to synergy, to creativity, to innovation. You know, so again, we need that foundation of trust to really move us to seeing differences in our strength and to actually valuing the differences. Aha, you see it differently. We are a complementary team.

We complement each other because I bring this strength and you bring that strength. And together, we're better together. That's the idea. So good.

So good. A complementary team. We complement one another and what we're doing and thinking about how we can actually help team members understand and take ownership of being able to feel comfortable bringing their differences to the table, right? We might know that they exist, but how can leaders create an environment where those team members feel empowered to take risks, to share a differing opinion in order to drive innovation as you've been sharing?

Yeah, that's the key because if there's low trust, I'm going to be afraid to take that risk. I'm going to be afraid to maybe really give my opinion if I feel like it's a low trust culture and my opinion might not be received well or perceived well or understood or valued or appreciated. And so I might not share it. And by not sharing it we all might lose out Because if we all see it the same then some of us are not necessary So the very fact that we do see it differently and come at it with different experiences and different perspectives and different representation is a strength.

It's where the synergy and the creativity comes. So we value the differences. We embrace them as the source of innovation and the power of innovation, but you need trust. to make it possible or else it can move to suspicion and even division in some cases.

In the worst case, a situation where there's really low trust, you not only become suspicious, it can even become divisive. We're distrusting. That's what's happening increasingly, unfortunately, in our society today. It's becoming increasingly divided and we're not extending enough trust to each other and goodwill and empathy for that matter too.

So anyway, it's vital, but you got to be willing to take that risk. I love using the word risk because another aspect of innovation is risk. And we won't innovate without taking risk. And by the very nature of taking risk, we're going to fail.

and so we need a new paradigm of failure, that failure is not bad, but failure is really the pathway to innovation and to growth. And what enables us to fail is a willingness to take a risk. What enables us to take a risk is that we believe that there's trust, that you've got my back and I've got yours and that we have a high trust team and culture and I can take that risk and even fail because there's trust in the culture and that failure, if it's smart, calculated, you know, a very intentional risk, that's how we innovate.

And I'll do that when there's trust. I won't do it when there's low trust. I'll give you one study. LRN did a study on what a high trust culture does in terms of people being willing to take a risk.

And the research showed this. In a high trust culture, people are 32 times more likely to take a responsible risk. And as a result, they're 11 times more likely to innovate. In a low trust culture, they just won't take that risk.

There's too much cost to it, personal and organizational. You need trust to create their environment to take a risk. And that's the key to innovating. Yeah, we need trust to create an environment where we can innovate.

And thinking about all of the different organizations and leaders that you worked with, Stephen, you've been across the globe sharing and helping organizations drive innovation. Is there a example of a leader or an organization that you've seen that successfully has leveraged their strengths of each of their team members in order to drive innovation? Was there any specific strategy they used or a few things that you learned from being able to coach and lead and teach them through that experience?

Yeah. I'll give a few just kind of quickly. So one is Lieutenant General Dorothy Hogg. She's a three-star Lieutenant General in the Air Force.

She's actually the Surgeon General of the Air Force. She leads by extending trust. She values the creativity that's inside of each person. And she created a little mantra that she used to express this belief in people and their creativity and innovation.

And, you know, this is in a military setting where you think it's more traditional, hierarchical command and control. But she is a trust and inspire leader in a military environment. And here's her motto. Every airman, every day, an innovator.

And so she's seen innovation in every single person, that everyone has creativity, synergy, and potential inside of them. They can all innovate. And so she's trying to create a culture where everyone sees themselves as an innovator. And they're allowed to take a responsible, smart, calculated risk, because that the only way you innovate Every airman every day an innovator And she modeling this by extending that trust Another I think of Eric Yuan at Zoom very innovative company And the whole story of Zoom, how they came about, Eric's whole approach is trust.

He says, look, the key thing for an entrepreneurial company is you need speed. And without trust, there is no speed. So you got to trust each other and he leads out. He's the first to give the trust.

He believes in trusting and extending that trust abundantly. And as a result, people are not afraid to take that risk. And everyone believes that, that they are seen for who they are and what they bring to the table. So he's really built a very complimentary team with differences becoming the greatest form of strengths and they're innovating like crazy and doing things like that.

I think of Bose, the headphones company, Bob Mareska, building a high trust team and culture and the passion they create and the innovation that flows from that. I think of 3M. I can go back years, their idea, they still have today the 15% rule where they're telling people, we trust you. Spend 15% of your time trying to think of ways to better the company, better customers.

Extension of trust again, but guess what came from this 15% rule? Post-it notes, among other things, all kinds of products came from that because people do their very best work when they're trusted and they're most innovative when they're trusted. I could go on and on and on. The point is that leaders that build a culture of trust and extend that trust, make it safe for people to fail, make it safe for people to take a risk, where they value the differences, where they start with trust, they're able to bring about innovation in a way you will never achieve without that trust.

And that is both the culture of trust and the extension of trust being given so people can take that risk. And so it's a game changer. And the only way we're going to innovate is by collaborating well as a team and having people being willing to take smart, calculated, intentional risk. And if you're the key to doing that is to trust.

And also it's what enables our differences to become our greatest form of strengths because that's where innovation flourishes, a collision or interplay of differences in an environment of trust. How do we create that trust? We model it. We go first.

Leaders go first in both being trustworthy and trusting. So that's how I view all of this coming together. And I think that really trust is the foundation for great innovation for all those reasons. Thank you so much, Stephen.

And I think at the heart of everything you shared, right, just to repeat for those taking notes, differences can become our greatest form of strength, which drive innovation, right? If you take nothing else from this conversation, being able to empathize and understand the nature and the dynamics of the team in order to establish a foundation of trust will in turn, right, we heard all those amazing examples drive innovation in your business. Stephen, thank you so much for the insights you shared during this conversation.

Absolutely, AJ. It's an exciting topic. We're all after innovation and there's a lot of ways to approach it. And I'm just saying, add trust to the mix.

It will change everything. Yes, exactly. Add trust to the mix. It definitely will make a huge difference.

And for those of you who would like to learn more on this topic, you can actually download our free guide, Seven Ways to Build Trust Between You and Your Team, a toolkit for leaders at all levels. And you'll also find a link to it in the show notes, or you can visit franklincovey.com for more information and resources. We look forward to staying connected.

Thank you for joining us on this season of Be a Better Leader podcast, as we dove into leadership strategies to thrive through change. Till next time.