CARE to Win: Building High-Performing People-First Culture with Alex Draper

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. The only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down care to win, building high-performing people-first culture. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Alex Draper and EO Fire Studios. Alex is the founder of DX Learning and is a leadership expert dedicating to eradicating workplace toxicity. Through his care to win playbook, he's transformed 60 ,000 plus leaders, fostering psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and people-centered leadership worldwide.

0:35In Fire Nation, we'll talk about what care to win means, what it stands for, what defines high-performing people-first culture, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Alex and our sponsors. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Alex, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:16What's up, Fire Nation? Answer that question. IQ versus EQ. The hard part of being a business owner, an entrepreneur is we tend to start our businesses with a technical mindset where we tend to be the brightest people in the room and more and likely have a lot of IQ, but just remember it's not about you. It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's about building an environment where your team can thrive and you make them smart, sometimes smarter than you. I think that's the IQ versus EQ. IQ, your intelligence. EQ, your emotional intelligence. Please double down on your emotional intelligence and build that thriving team.

2:02And just remember they're not people, they're souls. Fire Nation, we're talking about care to win, building high-performing people-first culture. And I want to start at the top, Alex. What does care to win mean? I imagine you all are trying to win at something. So in my business, I'm trying to win market share. In some of your business, it's profitable growth. It's healthy revenue. It's hiring talent. Is it fair to say we're all trying to win at something? I hope you all agree that in order to win at whatever you're trying to win at, you can't win without people, souls, people who are willing to do more than what's expected.

2:47People who bring ideas to you that you didn't have before. People who have your back. So care to win is we're winning at something. You're more late to win at it. If you care for your people and with reciprocity, they will care back. So it's about people and it's really important right now because we've got a talent shortage. We're making less babies. There's less great people out there and keeping your best talent to help you win. It should be an imperative for us all. Let's get detailed. Let's really dive into how care to win transforms leadership. It's really about putting people first. I'm like you guys.

3:28I run a business. It's fast. It's furious. We're 10 years old. And sometimes we forget because of the curiosity of running a small business and being an entrepreneur that we have souls that come to work for us. So just it's the people first mindset. If you put people first, they will put you first and you will be able to achieve more. Or if it's the opposite and you're really so heads down and results only and you forget about your people, they're going to forget about you. We've just got to close the gap between what your team needs and what your team gets. And the bigger the gap between what a team needs from you and what a team gets from you, I call that the more toxicity within a team.

4:18the more toxicity, the more bat chatter, the more they are talking behind your bat, the more that they're not focused on getting the job done and winning. So if we can close that gap between what someone gets and what someone needs, you can actually just raise the performance of the team. So many of our listeners, they want a high-performing people-first culture, but we first have to know what that even means. So what defines a high performing people first culture? It's the people speak up early. People speak up often. They talk about what's important and you're reducing the assumptions and risk within a business.

5:00So, you know, you've got a healthy culture when you get text messages, emails, and phone calls from your team every day going, Hey boss, I've got a better way of doing this. What'd you think? Hey boss, what you said yesterday didn't like that. Hey, boss, what you said yesterday, that was great. We should do more of that. If you're winning with culture, when there's a lot of conversations, tough conversations, there's healthy conflict, there's continuous improvement day in, day out. And you don't have a healthy culture when there is silence. so the what defines a high performing high trust based culture is lots of speaking up and lots of speaking up often about what's important there's lots of feedback about what's working because if we know what's working we can do more of it if we know what's not working we'll do less of it and as an entrepreneur and as a business owner we don't have all the answers and if you think that you do that goes to question number one that's a problem if you think you're the smartest person in the room then you've got a problem.

6:05You've got to wipe out that ego. But with a great team who's got you back, who are cared for, which we'll go into, well, what does that even mean? Then they'll pay you back with the gift of continuous improvement and telling you what's working. So we do more of it. What's not working, we do less of it. And every day becomes a learning day. Now we've already dived a little bit into this, but before we move on to the next topic, I really want to hammer home why. Why is this crucial for leadership today? The technology revolution is right here, right now, right? I'm using AI on a daily basis. And the thing that I say about AI is AI doesn't care.

6:48People do. So as we continue to build our teams, we have to remember that the one thing that differentiates your team and your culture is the people and the souls working within it. AI doesn't care. It cannot replace what humans can do, which is collaborate, have empathy, think about things from a different perspective, varying perspectives that drive ideas and innovation and ways to do our businesses faster, better and quicker. They definitely will not treat your customers like a human being can treat your customer who is engaged and intrinsically motivated to support you. I hope you all agree that you can't run your business without customers.

7:34We all need customers. Who touches customers? The humans, the souls in your company. So if you treat your people right, they will treat your customers right. You will succeed. So it's sometimes we forget that your customer satisfaction cannot be sustainably higher than your internal human satisfaction. So that employee engagement drives the customer engagement and that can get lost in the mail sometimes. And that's an important factor for all of us. We're going to talk a lot more about this Fire Nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Online safety and security is more important than ever.

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10:39We call those the human skills to get the hard stuff done. So when we say you need to win, what are you trying to win at? And I say CARE to win. Well, if you treat your people right and give them the right levels of clarity, the right levels of autonomy, the right levels of relationships, and equity is felt, that's where that performance comes from. And if we can close the gap between what people get and what they need when it comes to clarity and autonomy in relationships, you have the equity. So what gets in the way of our ability as entrepreneurs and owners and leaders in providing the right levels of clarity for a team to thrive is our brain.

11:20I say at DX, we are human beings are running advanced societal software technology on cave person hardware, our brains, and we are not ready for the technology revolution. The brain is trying to process between 11 and 60 million bits of information every second. I can imagine some of you probably have a couple of computer screens open. You've got your teams over here. You've got your email here. You've got me on one screen. Again, all of this technology, our brain's having to filter it through and nothing's changed in 300 ,000 years. We've just swapped out saber-toothed tigers for bosses, you lot.

11:57So the brain is a survival machine. It's designed to scan for threats and to keep you alive. And again, to do that, it's created to process information, it's created heuristics, heuristics of brain shortcuts to process these 11 to 60 million bits of information, to shortcut things, to make assumptions really quickly, to make decisions really quickly so that we can just get through that and go back to scanning for threats. The negative effect of what we call a heuristic is called a bias. There's 188 of them. So let's just take clarity. You know that for a team to perform at its best, it needs clarity.

12:35That's our science, that's our research. High-performing teams need clarity, autonomy, relationships, and equity. And you, as the boss of your company, You need to provide the right levels of clarity for your team. But what gets in your way is biases. For example, the curse of knowledge bias. The curse of knowledge bias is our brain, due to the assumption-making machine that it is, unknowingly assumes that the people that you're communicating to have the same level of understanding as you, which is hard for an entrepreneur because we have all that technical knowledge because that's how we started our business.

13:07So our brain's just saying in the meetings and in conversations, Just assume that everyone knows what you know. And that can come across on the opposite end as, what is he talking about? That doesn't make any sense. So if they're having to go the extra mile to learn about what's coming out of you, what you're communicating, that causes distrust in their brain. So the negative effect of a bias on the receiving end is, well, this doesn't make any sense. This doesn't relate to me. There's no empathy here. So what gets in our way of providing the right levels of clarity and autonomy and relationships is that bias.

13:41For another one, just to go down that path is the law of least efforts. It's quicker and easier for me to tie your shoelaces than it is for you to tie your own shoelaces. My brain's basically telling me, look, we're going to be late for school. Let me just tie my daughter's shoelaces. She knows how, but I don't want to be late. So we're biased to do things on behalf of our people when actually what they want is to do things themselves. ourselves. So these biases really get in our way. I advise reading the book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Dr. Daniel Kahneman to really go into this. You're all biased.

14:13And the one bias that we all have is we all think everyone else is biased and it's not me, it's you. And the more that we're aware of that, the more cognizant we are of how our brain is inhibiting our ability to be an effective leader, to build this amazing culture, the better your team is going to be. Now, listen, our listeners right here are thinking, man, I have so much going on with my business as a leader. There's so many demands on all the leaders already. So how do we make care a priority without just adding to the noise, without just adding more to the plate? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.

14:49Two months feels like two years. There's a lot going on the world to your point, right? There's, there's a lot that we're dealing with. I will say this is culture and leadership should not be a part-time job. If you, if you believe in what I said that in order to win, you need your, your people, your souls to be performing at the best and to perform at the best, they need the right levels of clarity, autonomy, relationships, and equity, then, then it needs to be woven into your work. So there's two ways to do that. If you, if you have a pre-existing culture, which some of us do, like at DX, we have three values, and we have some leadership behaviors that are expected of people.

15:29It's really important to connect clarity, autonomy, relationships, and equity to your pre-existing values and principles, because then it becomes, well, your why, your mission, your what, your values and behaviors, And the how becomes care, because I can we can pretty much correlate and connect clarity to a valued autonomy relationship. So then care becomes the sticky glue to your why and your what. But the most important part is to make this part of the flow of work. For example, in autonomy, in meetings, how to do it in a flow of work is just make sure that you speak less than the people you're speaking to.

16:07Make sure that you all have a voice, clarity, make it part of the. we're all in meetings every day, make sure that you don't leave a meeting unless we're all aligned. Relationships, just make sure that you do have one-on-ones of your team. And when you do have those one-on-ones that you're talking about non-work stuff and understanding what their motives and what their values are so that you can treat them right. So it's making care, clarity, autonomy, relationships, and equity part of work, not something separate, not another model, not another fad, not another, oh, I've got to add all this. It's part of your work.

16:41And when you do that and you make it part of work, that's how you build that trust, that high performing team. And again, if you care for your team, they will care back. They'll care for your customers. They'll care for your business. And that's where that performance comes from. I think you've convinced some people with that. So now give us a simple high impact action that leaders can take today to start their care journey? Well, number one, shameless plug, read the book. So read the book, Care to Win, The Four Leadership Habits to Build High-Performing Teams. Check it out on Amazon. It goes into a lot of what I've just spoken about, but in more depth and a fun way.

17:19So that's number one. To answer your question, clarity. So you know, high-performing teams, step one, you gotta have clarity. Without clarity, nothing good happens in a team. We have a saying, simplicity scales, complexity fails. Humans are wonderful at taking the simple and making it real complex. Make it more simple. So just simplicity scales, complexity fails. How can I, as the leader of my team or organization, make the simple simpler? And I just say always in meetings, never end a meeting misaligned. So misalignment in meetings, lack of clarity leads to duplication of work, rework, pain, trust issues, toxicity.

18:05Meetings are a way to get aligned. So never have misalignment. So that's clarity. autonomy i think as i said earlier autonomy is about empowering not wielding your power but empowering others it's it's giving them the trust so stop trying the shoelaces of your people the more that you tie their shoelaces people love flexibility they love to be in control don't steal that control um so always say you got two ears and one mouth use them in that ratio In meetings and conversations, just as a simple doctrine, just try and speak less than the people you're speaking to. That's the gift of autonomy. Let others speak.

18:49Relationships. The best thing to do here is just remember it's not about you. It's about others. A big bias here, as we talked about biases, it's conversational narcissism. The brain wants to be right and it wants to be light. and it's tricking you into saying, just talk lots and make the conversation all about you. Don't do that. Make the conversation about them. My relationships is understanding the motives and strengths and values of your people, because once you know those, you can be equitable and you can adapt to the unique needs of each people. And that's where performance comes from. So my favorite relationship question of all time, what's one thing I don't know about you that would improve our working relationship?

19:32It's amazing what the answer to that question. It just, it really helps people and gives them the autonomy, of course, answer that question however they want to. But when you start to ask that question on a consistent basis, you start to get the data about what drives people, what motivates people. When you understand what drives people, what motivates people, you can adapt to them and treat them right. And that's where that performance comes from. So just some three tips and tricks about clarity, autonomy, and relationships. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

20:00You've been hanging out with AD and JLD today, so let's keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Alex in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Alex, give us a call to action. I know your book, Care to Win, is a great next step. So give more details there and any other call to action you may have for our listeners today. Ego is a culture killer. It's a leadership killer. It's a people killer. just one one message for you we might not know remember our brains are a survival machine we might not know that the unintentional consequences of not managing your biases comes across as a very ego driven person so ego is a culture killer and one thing that i do to mitigate my own ego we've all got it i've got a little bit imposter syndrome in me i've got a little ego in me i'm i'm human like you are none of us are perfect none of us are perfect there's There's no flawless team.

20:56There's no flawless leader. But ego is a killer of that because then you think you're flawless. You think you're the smallest person in the room. I ask this question at the end of each day. It's a 15 minute reminder in my calendar. Would I follow me today? Just even 15 minutes of consciousness around that question. It gives you to think about what did I do? Oh, you know, in that meeting, I did talk a lot. In that meeting, I left that meeting not aligned. You know, I had an opportunity to have a one-on-one, but guess what? I talked about work. So using that question, would you follow you at the end of each day, just reduces that ego and allows you to be that leader that everyone wants you to be, that is people first and drives this high trust, high performing culture.

21:45Alex, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. And for that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Alex for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to both create and launch your podcast for, you guessed it, free. Freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me.

22:20Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout.