Ep. 151. The Four Pillars of High-Performing Teams | with Mike Robbins

Today our expert guest is Mike Robbins, the author of five books including his newest title, We’re All in This Together: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, and Belonging. For the past 20 years, he’s been a sought-after speaker and consultant who delivers keynotes and seminars for some of the top organizations in the world.

Mike grew up playing baseball as a kid and was drafted by the Kansas City Royals. He was working his way up through the minor leagues before he tore a ligament in his elbow that signaled the end of his career. While this was personally devastating, Mike came to notice two things during that time: It wasn’t always the most talented people that were the most successful and it wasn’t always the most successful people that were the happiest or most fulfilled. He erroneously thought that it was a sports thing until he entered the world of business.

Mike started his consulting business 20 years ago with an obsession — wondering what it takes for us to turn our talent into success, then our success into fulfillment, and then, collectively, how we can come together as a group and achieve something extraordinary. That’s been the subject of his past books, all culminating in the release of his latest title, We’re All in This Together.

There are four pillars that contribute to strong teams working together:

1. Psychological Safety. Trusting the group and knowing that you have the opportunity to speak up or make mistakes without being shamed or kicked out.
2. Inclusion and Belonging. Belonging isn’t just a feel-good thing. It’s a fundamental human need. We need to create an environment where team members feel like they belong.
3. Having Sweaty-Palm Conversations. If you lean into uncomfortable conversations, they are going to make it easier to connect, collaborate, and grow trust.
4. Care About and Challenge Each Other. If we don’t care about each other, we can’t push each other and challenge each other. If we push without caring, people get defensive. If we care without pushing, we won’t do anything extraordinary. You need both at the same time.

If your team can embody these four pillars, you can learn to work together, trust each other, and achieve extraordinary things. In times like this, now more than ever, we need to learn to work together and do something incredible.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“You’re living your life as if you’re trying to survive it. Nobody ever has. Stop trying to protect yourself, stop trying to not fail, stop trying to not be comfortable, stop trying to just survive. Your job is to lean into this experience as fully as you can and see what happens. It’s okay if we get scared, it’s okay if we get uncomfortable, but our job isn’t to get through life unscathed.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more: mike-robbins.com
• Read: We’re All in This Together: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, and Belonging
• Facebook: facebook.com/mikerobbinspage
• Instagram: instagram.com/mikedrobbins
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mrobbins
• Twitter: twitter.com/mikedrobbins

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media