Episode 188.5 – Green Apple Slice

It’s Monday. That means it’s time for some Green Apple Slices. This is John Garrett. On the other line, I have Accountants & Alliances for Sage Canada, Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Hello. How are you?

John: Doing great. I believe that I’ve gotten your title correct maybe four weeks in a row now.

Rachel: That’s a record.

John: That is a record. I think I just jinxed myself actually. But no, it’s always good to get back together and chat and share some articles that we find online about culture and employee engagement and things like that. Yeah, last week you were in New Orleans with all the smarty pants people.

Rachel: Yes. That’s right. We had a lot of fun. Then this week, I’m just in meetings in Toronto all week so kind of home.

John: Sweet. I get to go to Dubuque, Iowa for the HKFS Elevate Conference so there’s only one airline that goes there.

John: Hello, American. I’m looking at you. We’re going to do this but yeah, I’m looking forward to it and letting people know that yeah, you can’t just put trusted advisor on your business card or on your website and say that that’s okay.

Rachel: Yeah. I can honestly say that I’ve never been to Dubuque, Iowa. Who knows? One of these days, crossing my fingers.

John: You have to want to go to Dubuque. I’ve been before actually twice. It’s actually very pretty right on the Mississippi River.

Rachel: Oh, nice.

John: But we found this article on Forbes, How Viewing Your People as Individuals Can Dramatically Impact Your Bottom Line which I thought was a pretty interesting headline and got my attention anyway.

Rachel: It is. It starts out with, historically, leadership training has adopted the phrase, “There is no I in team,” right? It’s all about teamwork and everything like that. But I do think that there is a shift towards leveraging whether it’s individual strengths or personalities or all of that stuff so all of the things that make you unique and all of the things that you talk about in your green apple message.

I find that there is more importance on that when it comes to leading a team like what are the things that the individuals within this team are really great at and how can we leverage those strengths to make sure that we’re actually achieving the best possible results for the team instead of trying to view everybody within the team as common skillsets and everything like that.

John: Absolutely, yeah. I thought it was great. They referenced a study that was done, they’ve found the Six Fundamental Human Needs, modern human needs, so food, shelter, water, and connection is one of those because we’re all humans and we all want to feel connected. Feeling connected is not I sit in the cubicle next to this other person.

Rachel: No, I don’t think that’s —

John: We both have the same logoed computer bag. That is not connection. It’s maybe a start of a conversation that can create real connection.

Rachel: Absolutely.

John: I mean when it’s a fundamental human need, this isn’t a nice to have or a bonus or will it be great if this happens? No. This is as much as food and shelter and water is human connection. Yeah, I just thought that that was really important.

And then they talked about just more from the leadership side. I thought the article looked at just a strong leader is one who understands themselves, has a good relationship with themselves. There’s a source of confidence there so you’re not threated by well, people are coming for my job or if I promote this person, I’m going to look — and all of the sudden, I don’t have anyone to backfill me or to make me look good and prop me up. No, it’s none of those things I experienced when I was in the corporate world. I don’t know if they came across my tone.

But I mean I think that it’s really important that people really understand who they are and what their passions are and what they spend for and just what they truly love to do because no matter what job you have or what organization you work for, those hobbies and passions are the same.

Rachel: Absolutely. Totally agree. But then even when you’re looking at team building, whether you use DISC or Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder or those types of programs, one of the things that I hear over and over again anytime somebody talks about that is that when you are building a team, you really need to make sure that you have a great blend of the different styles that are represented in each of those.

Because basically, if you are a type A, I don’t even know what the letters would be on the DISC or whatever, but anyway, if you’re total type A and your entire team is total type A, you will have nothing but problems. But if you have a nice blend of each of the — like for StrengthsFinder for example, if each of the strengths represented within that, then you’ll actually end up with this really great cohesive team.

Even as a leader, if your personality styles are pretty much equal to each of the strengths, like in each of the strengths the ratios between the two and not 90% one thing and 10% another, then you also will be a really great leader because you’ll be able to leverage your different strengths in different ways depending on which team member you’re working with.

I thought it was really interesting. If you’re for example, needing to fill an open spot on a member of your team, take a look at the personal styles that are already represented and you will probably need a personality style that is maybe underrepresented in order to stay a really good strong team.

John: Right, absolutely which is why this podcast works so well because you bring all the smartness and then I just wrap it up at the end.

Rachel: That is better than the one that I was going to say. That’s fine.

John: Exactly. If you want to read the full article, you can go to greenapplepodcast.com and the full article is there. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss our chats every Monday and my interviews every Wednesday. If you or someone you know who is known for a hobby or a passion or any sort of interest outside of work, let us know so we can showcase them on the show because it’s so fun hearing about people’s interests and passions outside of work which makes them better at their job.

So be sure and check us out on Twitter. You’re @FischBooks.

Rachel: I am.

John: And I’m @RecoveringCPA. So we’ll talk to you next Monday. Have a good week, Rachel.

Rachel: You too, John.