How People Focused Leadership Helps Build High Performance Teams
Summary:
Cass Cooper joins the HR Impact show to discuss the most important responsibility of a leader when building a high-performance team. She emphasizes the need for leaders to focus on their people and create a culture of communication and development. Cass highlights the importance of role fit and responsibilities outcomes, suggesting that leaders should regularly audit roles and responsibilities to ensure alignment and avoid role creep. She also recommends bringing in an outside consultant to provide a fresh perspective and help identify areas for improvement. Ultimately, Cass believes that a leader's primary responsibility is to support and invest in their team members, empowering them to excel and grow.
Key Takeaways:
Leaders should focus on their people and invest in their development to build a high-performance team.
Regularly audit roles and responsibilities to ensure alignment and avoid role creep.
Bring in an outside consultant to provide a fresh perspective and help identify areas for improvement.
Create a culture of communication and empower team members to take on new projects and responsibilities.
Quotes:
"There's no bad employees, there's just the wrong role for them."
"Everyone has their strength. Everybody has a place where they can belong and be included."
"Carving out a little bit for someone to come in and help and assist will be advantageous."
"The biggest responsibility you have is to the folks that you're leading."
Timestamp
[0:00:00] Introduction to Cass Cooper
[0:03:20] Importance of role fit and responsibilities in building a high performing team
[0:05:49] Eliminating role creep and clarifying job expectations
[0:08:43] Creating space for communication and employee development
[0:11:51] The value of bringing in an outside consultant for perspective
[0:15:38] The most important responsibility of a leader is to develop their people
[0:18:33] Focusing time on the right things and investing in employees
[0:19:40] Where to find Cass
[0:20:34] Recap of main points and closing remarks
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Transcript
HR Impact - Cass Cooper - Interview
Dr. Jim: [:That is a big question. And the person that is going to help us answer that question joining us today, she's got a deep background in DEIB leadership. She has been a practitioner. She is a graduate of the university of Oklahoma, and currently the founder of Know Better, Do Better Cass Cooper.
Welcome to the show.
Cass Cooper: Hey, how's it going? Dr. Jim.
Dr. Jim: It is going well. I know that I left out a lot of detail from your bio and your background and experience. I think the first thing that we need to do is get the listeners up to speed on some of the details of your background that will inform the rest of our conversation.
ound and sales and marketing [:I live in the great state of Texas which is amazing, but also very hot at times. I went to undergrad at DePaul university in Chicago and studied women's and gender studies and sociology. I love plants. I am a big paint by numbers person, and I also like puzzles. So that's just a little bit more about me from a business standpoint, Know Better, Do Better
able and more equipped to do [:And we really need to be the center of our Of innovation. And that starts with better education about policies and procedures that can be more inclusive.
Dr. Jim: I think that lends itself to a lot of interesting conversations. And I don't know exactly where to start. I was almost thinking maybe I should talk about how is life in Texas. When you're an Oklahoma University of Oklahoma grad , but I don't think that's particularly relevant to the program.
Cass Cooper: There's a lot of us here. There's a lot of us here. Actually my neighbor across the street, they went to UT so we have a little bit of rivalry that goes through, especially around football season. But it's okay 'cause we usually win, so it's fine.
actitioners, people, leaders [:And I was looking forward to getting your input on it. Let's dive right in, when you look at your career and your background and your experience and the things that you've done, what was the game changing realization that really shifted your thinking on the best practices to build a high performing team?
Cass Cooper: Having a background in operations and restaurant and hospitality management, that's where I really started my first job. And it really, very early on, I realized that everybody has a role and not everybody is good at every role. I think that folks can be really great in some spaces, but then there's other spaces that they just don't excel at.
and really utilizing that in [:the wrong role for them. Everyone has their strength. Everybody has a place where they can belong and it be included. But my role as your leader, as your teammate is to figure out what are you great at and how can we make you better at it and put you in the right place for the strengths that you currently have.
And then also what other areas of opportunities that you don't know. That we can help and teach and learn and grow you. So the game changer for me is understanding that there is this big, bigger picture. And really working in a restaurant, right? Like we all have eaten out at some point in our life and we all understand, like when the food comes hot, it's supposed to be hot.
e to keep in the back of our [:Dr. Jim: I'm trying to figure out exactly which thread I want to pull on, but let's talk through the role fit and responsibilities outcomes thread that we were talking. And I really like how you said there's no such thing as a bad employee. And the reason why stuck out to me.
Is because when you look at the broader world of work and you look at disengaged employees and employees that feel burnt out and all of that sort of stuff, and you tie it back to when they joined the organization and you look at the position descriptions, most position descriptions are like 15 roles in 1 page, 15 things that you have to do.
So what can leaders and organizations do better to. Eliminate that role creep. How can they get clarity around what the job needs to be done?
Cass Cooper: So I think role creep. I love that term actually.
they're like, but can we do [:I think the biggest thing about. Maybe mitigating or avoiding that is making sure that you're doing an audit of what the business actually needs and what people are actually providing. And really Making sure that they're in better alignment than maybe you had a year ago. I think sometimes we write roles and responsibilities and as long as the person is performing that, those core competencies well, we don't really ask the question of okay what other projects have you taken on?
se and make sure that you're [:One thing that I really like seeing in people that I lead is when they take on a new project and they come to me and say, I really would like to learn this. Can I take this project? And that gives me an opportunity to say to them. Okay. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. What if we did this and took this off your plate and then we put that here or maybe let's run alongside each other and try to figure out how to do that together really auditing and being in constant communication with people is the key to making sure that their role aligns with their mission, purpose and values that they have personally, along with the mission, purpose and values that you have in the organization.
ality, you're not putting in [:literally having to just get the job done and not actually focus on maybe even what we need as an organization. Maybe this task isn't something that you need to be focusing on right now. Maybe it's something else that we don't even know, but because we're just expecting you to do the same things over and over, we're not asking that question well.
Dr. Jim: I really like The point that you made. If your employee approaches you, or if your team member approaches you about a project that they want to take on, that's going to broaden their scope of work.
You mentioned, leaders should be looking at, what can we take off of your plate to balance that out? That's a really good point. But you also mentioned how you need to be constantly communicating so that you're level setting as you go.
ng so that you have a finger [:Here's where most man, most managers have expressed frustration in doing that. They have so many things that are on their plate that they need to do from a task basis. How do you create the space to build that communication culture? What have you seen work best in your experience?
Cass Cooper: This is where a consultant can really help, right?
s have so many things to do, [:We don't have this dah. But what is the cost, the long term cost? That you potentially take on by not taking a pause and hiring somebody who can help and focus solely on that. That to me is a bigger risk than saying, I just don't have the time. I think we all find time for what we prioritize.
And if you're really, truly trying to prioritize your people and try, trying to prioritize the future of your business, carving out a little bit of, for someone to come in and help and assist with that. Will be advantageous .
Dr. Jim: That's a really good point. I think having an outsider perspective is important.
u're not going to be able to [:But a really great empathetic leader who's going to listen to their folks and listen to their people is going to be able to say, you know what, I don't know everything and I don't need to know everything. And if I'm going to scale, I need to have somebody who's going to provide the infrastructure and the scaffolding for me to do that.
Dr. Jim: What you said right there, you almost read my mind because what I was going to say is organizations should always have a growth mindset in place. Unfortunately, leaders within organizations don't often do that. They want to maintain the things that they have done over time. And what that creates is a bottleneck where those people are always busy.
ntly and what it should look [:Give us some examples of where you've impacted organizations that way and created space for those leaders to focus more on people oriented tasks versus just activity.
Cass Cooper: So whenever I come in, I always start with, why did you call me? Is the biggest question because I think what they think that they are trying to solve for and what I actually may uncover can be very different things.
hat the leaders are actually [:That's the first thing that is really, what do you think that I'm here for? And what would you in a perfect world? What would you like me to be solving for? Then aligning those two things and seeing where we can meet in the middle and being honest with the business leader, the owner of these are the things that your people are actually saying.
So do a little bit of qualitative questioning and interaction. I like to do a mixed methods approach and have a quantitative interaction. Like almost like a quiz, like just do a little bit of a study and probe and ask some questions based off of that qualitative analysis. Really trying to get into the data part of what we're here for and what your people are experiencing based off of the reasons why the ownership has called me in.
o figure that out where this [:And we didn't know that these were like, and really trying to figure out what questions can be best answered there. And then take that back to them and say, okay, based off of the feedback. Here are some of the things that the organization is facing and then take that and ask the people. That's one thing that I am so great about is let's facilitate a conversation and let's ask you to solve your own challenges and problems.
What you think is the challenge and what I find may not be in alignment, but now that we've. Ascertain exactly what those things are. Let's be creative and try to figure out what we can do within the things and carve out. Usually that would take only like an hour and a half to really try to lead people into that conversation.
olding to try to do that and [:Cause they're so bogged down in their day to day .
Dr. Jim: We're bringing this full circle. So you talked about having a second set of eyes in there. You talked about creating space. You talked about identifying areas of opportunity to do things differently or offload or delegate.
When we look at the most important responsibility of a leader, when it comes to building a high performance team how does all of this stuff that we talked about tie back into the first question that we asked?
we've probably failed on two [:So we want to make sure that we're giving people the tools, right? That's the equity piece that we always talk about. What are the tools that this person needs? Not just in their job, but in order to best perform inside of this organization. Is it mentorship? Is it some sort of outside presence? Is it a better network?
Like, how can we make sure that they have all the tools at their disposal in order to be great? And train them up so that we can, they can do their best here in this organization. How can I empower them to make sure that they are Leading towards the next step in their career journey and their career path.
mately that leads to. better [:And I think the last part is, maybe this isn't the right position for you. Maybe there's something that you're better at, you're more well suited for. Maybe there's an organization that you would be better suited for, but hopefully we've done those first two things well, so that we don't have to get to that last part of okay, train you out kind of thing. I think that's the biggest thing is really making sure that you're responsible to your people in a three pronged approach rather than just being punitive because they didn't know or they weren't able.
Dr. Jim: If I'm putting a frame around everything that you said, number 1 responsibility of any leader within any organization is to make sure that their people are being developed and if you don't have the internal discipline to step away from all the tasks that you're doing and ask yourself the question, are these the right things that I should be spending my time on?
That's [:So before we wind everything down. I'd like you to reflect on the conversation that we've had so far and pull out a framework that those leaders who are listening can use to be focusing their time on the right things versus the wrong things. What would you say to that?
and how can you best support [:And invest in them. Will lead to better outcomes, better performance by them and ultimately more freed space for yourself to be able to grow and scale the business that you have. So focusing on how can I figure out what the folks that I'm leading are good at and make them great. What are they great at and make them fantastic.
And from there, Where do you want to go and how can we all get there together is really the key to being a great and inclusive and equitable leader
Dr. Jim: Last last thing before we Close down shop. Where can people find you?
Cass Cooper: So I am always on linkedin.
st come and hang out with me [:Dr. Jim: When I'm thinking about what we picked out, here's the things that stood out to me.
Number one responsibility of a leader is to make sure that they have appropriate amount of time to invest in their people and creating the space for that, in order for you to create the space for that, the things that stood out in this conversation that you brought out is that you have to build a communication culture that allows and creates the space for your people to come to you to.
Talk through what their development path looks like, what areas of opportunities are in the organization that they can take on your responsibility as a leader is to acknowledge those things, create a pathway for them to take on those tasks, but at the same time, reduce the load that they're dealing with so that they're not burnt out from developing themselves.
the conversation leave us a [:
