Building a High Trust, High Communication Culture

Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today on the HR impact show. This is your friendly neighborhood town strategy near Dr. Jim. There is no shortcut to building extreme trust and it requires extreme discipline from leaders. In fact, this requires leaders to be silent more often than not, and having a strategic bias for action.

Those were the key learnings that helped Rusty Atkinson build high performing teams throughout his career, and he's joining us today. He's an experienced CIO and SaaS business leader with over 20 years of experience leading technical teams. He's had a strong history of delivering and supporting SaaS offerings.

He's been involved in numerous digital transformations. He's got a foot in both infrastructure and operations. He's enabled a lot of development teams. He removes friction. One of the more. Important and probably underrated things about Rusty's background. Is that he is an active DEI B advocate and sponsor.

ot deep technology executive [: 00:01:00

Rusty Atkinson: Thank you, Dr. Jim. I'm happy to be here.

Dr. Jim: This isn't our first rodeo. You and I have been together on a show before, so I'm I'm pumped to revisit some of the conversations that we've had previously. I think before we dive into the nuts and bolts of building high performance teams, I'd like you to share with the audience a little bit more detail and context about your background and experience, and then we'll dive right into the discussion after that.

Rusty Atkinson: Happy to. You said it in the intro, I've been a geek leading teams of geeks for my entire career. And that spans let's say over a couple of decades and and I've done that in just so many different verticals, financial services and high tech and just security InfoSec and most recently in healthcare.

h. And I was there until CVS [: 00:02:00

When I got first got into healthcare and first got exposed to the missions of healthcare, they're just. They're so compelling, it's not to say that there aren't compelling missions the companies and other verticals don't have compelling missions, but when your work you do, you can see the work impact lives of patients.

It's, it's just hard to compare. And, when you talk about motivating teams and building high performance teams, a lot of times it ties into the mission that the company is in and can the individual see themselves in that company mission. And when that company mission is actually saving lives and helping lives be more it's, that's what my, my, my career has come to is this finding my place.

Inside of the healthcare vertical.

m paraphrasing a little bit, [: 00:03:00

Rusty Atkinson: I was at Signify when CVS acquired, it wasn't my first acquisition, I've been involved in, gosh, I don't even know if I can number the acquisitions either as the acquirer or the acquired, and those are two different experiences when you are on the team that gets acquired.

Which we were at Signify, there's a concern. There's a fear. There's it's unspoken lots of times, but folks are wondering, what's this mean to me? What happens when, when the big company takes over? What will, that fear it, I'm telling you, it exists, whether or not you feel it personally, as a member of the team, it happens on your, somebody in your team, some bodies in your team feel that fear and uncertainty and doubt of what's going to happen.

[: 00:04:00

They're wondering about you. They're wondering about this new company that just took over and oh my gosh, they go fire us all. Is this the end? They come in here to save money by getting rid of my salary. Whether or not they articulate those concerns to you can bet that they're there. And while I knew that, and I've known that being at Signify as the acquired.

Those those were real as conversations that you have to have with the team. Those concerns that fear doesn't go away by not talking about it.

k I think when we're talking [: 00:05:00

Like, all of these leadership buzzwords got to be transparent. You got to be vulnerable. You got to be authentic. That's 1 of those scenarios when you're either being acquired or part of the acquiring leadership team. It's critical for you to. Be all of those things and show up in a way that best supports the existing overall team as best you can.

Thanks for that. That bit of insight. When I opened the show, I mentioned that there's no shortcut to building extreme trust and it also requires discipline from leaders. When you're talking about no shortcuts and extreme discipline, that's at odds with a startup environment. How do you connect those 2 things and tie it to the game changing realization that helped you build these high performing teams.

hat it takes discipline It's [: 00:06:00

That's how you build extreme trust is by doing the thing, saying the things you're going to do and then doing those things. And then, by the way, reminding people, I told you I was going to help you out. I told you I was going to take care of you. That's how you build extreme trust is by proving it, right?

y would do or the culture or [: 00:07:00

You don't get to make those mistakes. You don't get to make the mistakes of intentionally, defying the thing that you said was important. And when you do, I guarantee you it will be seen. It will not happen at all. It will be seen and you'll get the decreased trust because of it. That's what I mean by there's no shortcut.

Dr. Jim: I'm going to play a little devil's advocate here, and I appreciate the context that you laid out here. When I think of a startup environment. It's often run really fast, get stuff done. And when I take the extreme trust concept, extreme discipline from leaders, it automatically takes me into a more methodical.

Approach more process oriented, you have to like, create the space and leave the foundation for building trust at that individual level. And that takes time. How do you reconcile both the pace of a startup environment with, especially in a technical environment where you have so many things that are deliverables and still create.

Enough space for those [: 00:08:00

Rusty Atkinson: You can't sacrifice the employee engagement because we're in a startup. A startup is still formed with people and the people interact with one another and the engagements that you have with the people are still, they're foundational.

Sure. We have tight timelines and sure. We have to be dynamic and we have to, be be agile, nimble when we have requirements that might change from one day to the next. Absolutely. But none of those things have to do with the relationship. I make time for one on ones with my extended team.

I make a lot of time for one on ones with my direct team. Having those conversations, having, to your point earlier, frank conversations with the folks and letting them understand how what's a my priority? What's motivating me? What are the things that I see as as my priorities, the unchallengeable imperatives, if you will, and then act in accordance with that, right?

month [: 00:09:00

But if you don't try to pretend like you've got the plan all locked down in the first day, then you give yourself some room for that latitude for that being nimble and changing direction. I still. Maintain that the fast paced or the nimble way that you have to move inside of a startup does not preclude one from operating in a disciplined way and building that extreme trust with the employees, you, you do that by engaging with the employees and be honest with the employees and be as transparent as you'd be with employees.

That's how you build those things.

Dr. Jim: I think there's a there's a lot in what you said that. I think is actionable, but there's 1 element that I want to pull on and that's your comment about. You still do your 1 on 1's with your downline. You still do your 1 on 1's with your immediate direct reports. Everybody knows that, 1 on 1's are like taking your vitamins.

[: 00:10:00

Rusty Atkinson: I telegraphed my answer back maybe 10, 15 minutes ago when I said that you make public promises and they keep them in my first day is when I'm talking to an employee, whether it's the employees that were here, when I got here and employees that I added since I've been here, I let them know.

Early on that they can expect to have a one on one with me on a basis of the week or every other week or monthly, depending on what their level is in organization so that they're never longer than that away from having my undivided attention. And I make that commitment to him. I already said that if you make a commitment and then you don't follow it, that's the best way to destroy trust.

n I must dedicate time to it [: 00:11:00

Look, if a one on one becomes a status report, it becomes a readout of the initiatives that you're supposed to finish. And did you do it? Did you not do it? Then? Yeah, it's going to get, it's going to get old. It's going to get crusty and you're not going to want to do it. But if you're one on one becomes about the employee.

Becomes about the employee's aspirations, dreams, hopes, asked employee, what's the end of their career. This is one of my favorite questions to really spice up a one on one. I asked Sally, I don't have anybody named Sally on my team, but I asked Sally, have you ever sat down and thought about what the end of your career looks like?

What's the last thing you're doing before you retire? The last job you're in. Because if you can articulate that even if it takes you maybe it takes you a month maybe two or three times from now when we talk you can give me the answer to this But think about what the end of your career looks like.

hey, tell me about the next [: 00:12:00

Then I can, we can start working toward that. We can start working on actions that get you closer to that, even if the opportunity doesn't pop up next year, next month, next three years. And you, this thing happens when you have that conversation. I've seen just people light up in those conversations.

Like I've never had this conversation before.

Dr. Jim: It's a fantastic question. And me being a bit more morbid than you, I would often in, probably an early stage meeting with a new employee, I would take them through an exercise and have them. Write their eulogy, what do you want to be remembered for when you're gone? And I tell them, obviously why are we doing?

a lot of people look at you [: 00:13:00

1 of the things that I'm wondering about is when you're laying the foundation for this sort of high trust, high discipline, high communication environment. What are the things that leaders should be on alert for that can set this exercise back or not get you the results that you want?

Rusty Atkinson: Yeah you've got to guard against making promises that are not objectively in your control. One of the sins that I've seen managers commit over and over again is, is make promises to folks in their organization that yes, I know you want to raise, I know you want a promotion. I'm going to get it.

Are you objectively in control of that? If you're not, if you're not running the finance department, if you don't have that kind of latitude, then making that promise, Oh boy, that's a trap. You just laid yourself a trap. So I would say, be careful making promises where you don't control it completely.

l, right? But only if you'll [: 00:14:00

When I say that to an individual, some number of those individuals are going to be low performers who are not. Ready, willing or able, whichever the case may be to commit to the the requirements of the role that they're in. It doesn't change that I'm committed to helping you be as big, strong, fast, and unencumber you as best I can, but you still have a responsibility to do, to perform.

And those are not just incongruent with one another. I'm going to do my best to equip you and unencumber you. Your part is to do your best. To crush the job you've been given. If you fail to see that, that, that kind of the two parts of the same then I think of a leader can be trapped in the saying, but if I grade their performance, if I manage their performance, then will they trust me?

And I would argue if [: 00:15:00

They can't unless you have an honest conversation with them about the performance.

Dr. Jim: There's an interesting aspect of what what you're saying that I want to tie together. When we're thinking about that leader follower relationship. There is an element of it where the leader's role is to listen and there's another element where the leader's role is to take action.

Especially in early stage leaders, it's hard to figure out. Which option, which path you should take. What's the advice that you have for those early leaders that are trying to figure out, okay, I'm hearing what my team is telling me. Which path do I take? Do I continue listening? Do I take action?

What's my course? How have you navigated that those sort of questions?

the early career manager has [: 00:16:00

That's a tough one I don't think there's a magic easy button for it it has to be governed by the whole calculus, right? How much time do you have for this task? How complex is the task? How much experience does the individual have with the task? How much experience do you have with the task? It's a, like I said, it's a calculus.

And I wish I had an easy answer for you, but it's about, being honest with yourself and with the individuals about that calculus, about those elements and those variables. And acknowledging that as every day and every hour goes by, the deadline gets closer and that should be guiding our actions.

o let me get some additional [: 00:17:00

And I think, especially in that use case that you mentioned, most of those early career managers are people that. Could push pull and drag them, drag things across the finish line as individual contributors. And as first time leaders, they probably have the same bit of that instinct in them. So the worst thing that you can do is try to do that.

What you should do is take a beat and probably get other people involved in the coaching process for yourself so that you're making the right decision instead of taking action and doing the work for somebody else.

Rusty Atkinson: You're right. That's, having, being a doer, being especially a high performing doer, by the way, those are people who typically get promoted, not always, but typically get promoted. There's this this bias toward action for them too. And their bias toward action could take them.

t me do that for you. And it [: 00:18:00

Find out how you can help them do the task. Don't take it from them. Find out how you can help them do it better, stronger, faster.

Dr. Jim: I'm glad that you mentioned find out from them what they need. As simple as if we're talking about building an extreme trust environment and a high communication environment. It's certainly in bounds to ask the question. What do you need me to do? Is this something where you just need to vet and have me listen?

at building these high trust [: 00:19:00

Now, I'd like you to map out, how do you even get started with this? If you're a new leader or looking for that cultural transformation that you want to initiate. Initiate. Where do you start? How do you actually get this in motion?

Rusty Atkinson: It's I'm embarrassed because the first steps are simple and maybe obvious to me. Let's say you've got a team of five, six folks. And you want you I mean you really want this high trust and you know that it's gonna it's gonna take time to build I think the first conversation you have to have is a real heart to heart everybody and everybody in the group get together Let's talk.

What kind of team do we want to be? It's Inconceivable to me that somebody would come up and say, I want to untrustworthy organization, build that conversation, set the environment up so that you're talking to the people and you're finding out what's important to them and you're going to need to map this to your organization, your parent organization and the company to make sure that you're not setting up a a discussion or a culture for your team that's not yeah.

st of the company but having [: 00:20:00

Should we, that we're doing now, should we continue, what kind of things that we're doing now that we're not doing now that we should be starting, having that start, stop, continue conversation as a group where all voices are heard. One of the things that I've talked about before is that we'll get a lot of mileage if we won't predetermine where good ideas come from.

And so if you believe that, if you believe that good ideas can come from any organization, regardless of what the person looks like or their background, then you should invite their voice. So the first step is that. And an output of that, an outcome of that should be setting up some sort of defining actions for your team.

a month. I want every single [: 00:21:00

It can just be a literally two minute check in the morning. All of us, most of us use some kind of instant messenger at work, whether it be seams or slack, as easy as putting up a channel. Tell me what you did yesterday. Tell me what you're doing today. What are you being blocked by as a leader? I'm going to look for the blocks first.

That's the first thing we look for, because that tells me somebody is essentially digital help. Is what they're saying and I'm going to go in there and find out how I can plug it in. But if you, if that is an out shoot of that kickoff conversation, where you talk about stop, start, continue, then now you're starting to frame a thing where they know how to find you and where you're going to show up for them.

ch that kickoff conversation [: 00:22:00

So now we've decided as a group, these are the things that are important, these are the activities that we'll use to make sure that we do them. Now you tell these subordinate, these peer organizations and subordinate or superior organizations how you're going to approach these things. And the next month they see you do them.

And the next month after that, they see you do them. And now the trust can grow, be organically grow beyond you and yours to you and yours and those who interact with.

Dr. Jim: Real good stuff, Rusty. If people who are listening want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

a leader. com is a personal [: 00:23:00

I publish out there from time to time. So you can stop in there and take a look, but LinkedIn is really the best place to find me.

Dr. Jim: Rusty appreciate you hanging out with us and sharing your insight. I think when I'm listening to this conversation, I think 1 of the big things that stands out to me is that.

ions will allow you to level [: 00:24:00

I think those 2 elements of the conversation are something that I'll keep in my back pocket and I wanted to call out before we wind down the show. For those who have been listening to the conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. Make sure you leave us a review. And then tune in next time where we will bring on another great leader to share with us the game changing insights that they had that helped them build a high performing team.