ActionCOACH founder Brad Sugars will tell you first and foremost that your company is only as good as your team. Instant Team Building takes the mystery and guesswork out of building the right team that lasts and helps you drive your business objectives. Very early on in life, Mr. Sugars father told him “You only ever get the staff you deserve”. Those can be tough words to swallow as a business owner as it’s often easier to assert that it is hard to find good people and see your employees as an excuse for goals not being met vs. a reflection on your ability or inability.
Most business owners are not born recruiters, this is where this installment of the Sugars Instant Success collection comes in. Instant Team Building literally walks you through the process of finding and hiring your dream candidates, identifying leaders in your company and getting everyone working towards a common goal.
Instant Team Building starts you on the journey of taking an introspective look at your Vision, Mission and Culture and how that aligns with the team you are looking for. There is a great analogy he uses of thinking about this like baking. If you are looking to tackle a new dish you clearly have to change your recipe. Throughout coaching you learn the importance of a legitimate Vision and Mission for your business and thats illustrated clearly in Instant Team Building. You quickly realize that it’s more than some word-smithed marketing statement, your Mission and Vision are the litmus test to evaluate your current and future team members.
Once you’ve got a firm grip on your company’s culture and whats important to it, Sugars walks us through the crucial steps to build your dream team. The great thing about being aligned with an organization like ActionCOACH is the tools are literally there at your disposal to take the guesswork out and apply the science of tools like the DISC Personality Profile to learn more about your existing team and what personality, behavioral and motivational factors your ideal employee should have. If you’ve never had exposure to the DISC tool before, Sugars does an excellent job of walking you through the high level details to understand how powerful the application of it is.
Once you’ve learned who you’ve really got and who you really need on your team, another common hang up business owners seem to have is creating the right environment for the team you want. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to capture that “Google Culture” with game rooms, beer on tap and unlimited vacations. But that trend is never one-size fits all and Sugars devotes time midway through Instant Team Building into evaluating not only esthetics of your company environment but also tangible, practical ways to drive social engagement, handle conflict and team growth.
It would be rare to read anything written by Brad Sugars that doesn’t stress the importance of a system, and this book is no exception. Sugars spends a great deal of time laying out a recruitment and interviewing system. At first read, this can seem overwhelming and for those who have tried it can definitely take you out of your comfort zone a bit because its not like anything most of us were taught or experienced in our own career searches. But when you break it down you quickly realize how much of the accountability and time that normally weigh on the business owner in the recruiting and interview process is drastically reduced. This system Sugars has outlined literally hands you what you need to implement advertising, phone screenings and group interviews that practically do all the work for you to eliminate the wrong candidates and let the right ones shine.
Of course all of this would be for not if once we got the right team members in place we didn’t continue to nurture them to help their growth in the organization. Fear not, Sugars covers this as well delving into topics such as understanding and aligning belief systems and creating synergy amongst the team. These are eye-opening topics in Instant Team Building even tackling subjects like identifying victims and getting them to take ownership, accountability and responsibility for their actions.
True to its word this book gives you everything you need to get rid of the employees who are simply punching a clock and helps build the team that is helping you succeed! It’s a handbook you will want to keep on hand to continually refer back to time and again.
Book reviewed by…
Brad Husted
Owner/President