Transcript: How to Build a Strong Community and Belonging in Your Workplace // Rusty Chadwick, WinShape Teams

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“How to Build a Strong Community and Belonging in Your Workplace “

July3rd, 2023

Rusty Chadwick

Intro: Have you wondered what you could do to improve your team's effectiveness? Well, today on episode number 344 of the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, my guest uncovers the transformational power of experiences that build community and belonging in the workplace.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and the author of the award-winning book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

You know, I love reading books that help me be a better leader. And today my guest, Rusty Chadwick, a director at WinShape Teams and the author of the book Team Work: 13 Timeless Principles for Creating Success and Fulfillment as a Team Member, well, WinShape Teams, a ministry of WinShape Foundation, supported by the Chick-Fil-A Cathy family, works to develop stronger, better-connected teams and leaders. And they're in Rome, Georgia, and happen to be a best Christian workplace as well.

This episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces Employee Engagement Survey, and you can sign in today to discover the health of your organization's culture. This fall would be a wonderful time to listen to your employees, with our easy-to-administer online Engagement Survey, by going to workplaces.org. That's www.workplaces.org. Being a certified best Christian workplace improves your ability to attract more talented employees and keep them longer.

And also, if you're interested in becoming an inspirational leader, BCW can help transform your leadership effectiveness with a stakeholder-based coaching process. Learn more about that by going to workplaces.org/coaching. And check it out today.

Also, hello to our new listeners, and thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

But let me tell you a little more about Rusty Chadwick. Rusty has been with WinShape Teams for 12 years and has been promoted four times in that period of time. Rusty speaks, writes, and creates development experience for teams and leaders. And here's an interesting fact: Rusty produced a documentary on team performance in the grueling endurance sport of adventure racing. Rusty holds a master's degree in management and leadership and graduated from my wife's alma mater, Grove City College. I'm especially excited about today's episode, as Rusty's book dovetails perfectly with our FLOURISH model, the eight keys to employee engagement and well-being.

Our first key, the F in FLOURISH, is fantastic teams, and Rusty's book supplies a framework for personal excellence and sacrificial service at the core. He believes the success of a team and the fulfillment of its members depend on everyone's ability and desire to contribute. And I couldn't agree more.

So here's my conversation with Rusty Chadwick.

Hi, Rusty. It's great to have you with us on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast.

Rusty Chadwick: Oh, thanks, Al. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having a conversation with me.

Al: We're looking forward to our conversation.

So, Rusty, you have an interesting career path. In our research, we discovered that after college, you spent several years as a guide and head wrangler at a guest ranch. And so how did that experience shape you and link you to your current work at WinShape Teams? And maybe there'll be a couple of City Slicker movie stories here at the same time.

Rusty: Yes. Yeah, I definitely had a bit of a unique career-path start there. Yeah, I did. After college, I spent several years working in Colorado in the field of guest ranching—actually, at two different ranches—as a head wrangler, and got, as you mentioned, team member there. I led my first team there.

But really, I think there's probably—there are so many things, it would be hard to overstate the impact of that time and how it shaped me in those formative years. There are probably three things that come to mind as far as shaping me in a way that I think really relates to my work at WinShape.

WinShape is a nonprofit organization. It's a foundation that was founded by Truett Cathy, who many may know from his work founding and running for many years Chick-fil-A. And so he founded WinShape Foundation. There are five different ministries that are part of the Foundation, everything from foster care and marriage ministry to camps, college, development leadership experiences. And then what we do with teams is we work with teams and leaders. So a little bit of context for what WinShape is.

When I think of my time back at the ranch, yeah, the three things that stand out, the first is I learned the transformational power of experiences. We were in the business of helping people step away from their norm with their families and have experiences. When I worked at Lost Valley, they told the story—Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado—there was a, I guess that many will know Walt Disney was a guest there early on at the time. And they shared the story that when he was there, the owner of the ranch asked him, “You're the king of creating experiences for families. What would you tell me as I'm trying to do that?” And the story goes that he said, “What people think they want is recreation, but what they really need is re-creation.” And I think that has stuck with me ever since, in every job I've had, because when people step away and immerse themselves in experiences, it can be life changing. Through those experiences, they have revelations that when we add action to them, change our lives. So that was something that really came to life for me in that environment.

And the second thing that shaped me, I think, there, that really sticks with me is the importance of building community in the workplace. I don't know that I had thought intentionally about that as a college student or in my younger days. But the Ranch is, by nature, of the way they worked. Staff lived on site, and so we had intentional time together with our teams that we worked on as wranglers or other crews. We had staff events in the evenings. We spent a lot of time building community with our coworkers, and those relationships, many of them, have lasted through the years. And that allowed the work to be so much more fulfilling. But it's rare to speak to an alumni, one of those places, that doesn't look back on that as one of the more formative times their life, and I think that's a big part of it. Those relationships were so powerful.

And the last thing that I think about is that was the first place I think I really saw the impact of servant leadership. I remember showing up at Lost Valley, very green, very few skills when it came to horses. And the head wrangler was a guy named Judd Baker, and I remember one of the chores that we did every day was feeding the horses. And we would drive through the meadows—we had over 100 horses—and we would feed them from the back of a truck. And somebody would drive and the other person would stand in the back and throw the hay, and the standing in the back and throwing the hay was by far the harder job of the two. And I remember Judd, as the head wrangler, running out there and fighting to be on the back of that truck and always letting someone else drive and saying, “I'm going to throw the hay.” And that really made an impression on me as a young team member to see the leader operating that way, and that's really impacted me to this day.

Al: Those are great takeaways from an early, impressionable experience. Yeah. Well, come back to that, I'm sure.

Well, one of the factors of a flourishing workplace that we highlight at BCWI is fantastic teams. And in the book Team Work, you and Russ Sarratt talk about clearly defining what a team is and what a team isn't. And so share some insight as to what makes a real team from your perspective versus just a group or a department within an organization.

Rusty: Yeah. I think we use the word team probably to describe a lot of things that maybe are not real teams, in a sense. I think that's okay. I mean, there's not a need for that to be something that's got extremely clear definition. But I think there is value in distinguishing them because we do build and work together in a real team differently than we would in a department or a group. And so I think John Katzenbach and his coauthor Smith, they wrote a book called The Wisdom of Teams, and their definition of a team is kind of one of the more highly regarded. And it highlights some key components: small in number, complementary skills, common purpose, common goals, mutual accountability, you know, some things that really set apart a group that would be a true team.

And I think it is helpful to look at it that way because we like to say that on a team, we all win or none of us do. There's a linkage there where it's not just a group of individuals working alongside each other in a common direction, but it's a group of people who are committed to a shared and common purpose, working together toward that. And so one succeeds, we all succeed. If we're struggling, then none of us are reaching our goal.

And I think the distinction there is helpful because it's not wrong to work in a department or a group. There are times when that's all that's needed. But when we're on a team, there are things that are going to be asked of us that we need to be prepared to commit to. If we're going to be successful as a real team, I'm going to have to sacrifice my own interests for the good of the group. And so it's helpful to know that I'm doing that for a group of people that are linked together, whose fate is linked, in a sense, because we're committed to accomplishing something that's so important, and we believe that without this group, we can't get it done as well as we could individually. So I think that's a real distinguisher.

Al: I agree. Yeah. And it's almost like there's two continuums. You know, you've got group on one side; you've got team on the other. And as I think about, for our listeners, where is your leadership team, for example? Where is the team that you work on? Is it a loosely configured group that's, you know, maybe a department? Or are you a highly functioning team with complementary skills and common purpose and goals, where you sacrifice? I love the way you described that. That's great, Rusty.

In Christian organizations, we hear a lot about the important concept of servant leadership, and you've already brought up the whole topic of servant leadership. You know, leaders go first. Leaders, they would do things that they would expect other people to do, but they show them how to do it. But you talk about servant teamsmanship as well in your book. So how is it different comparing servant leadership to servant teamsmanship? And, you know, why is servant teamsmanship important to flourishing?

Rusty: Well, yeah. Servant leadership is talked about fairly often. And I think more and more people are starting to realize that the value of leaders who view their leadership role as an opportunity to serve, they lead because they want to serve, and that distinguishes them from others who may have a role of leadership because they want authority; they want power. And a lot of things come from that.

I think the main idea behind servant teamsmanship was to say that doesn't have to stop with the role of a leader. It takes the concept of you in your role as an opportunity to serve and just applies it to everyone, all team members. I think healthy teams definitely need effective servant leaders, but they also need members who can team and also follow well. Sometimes we leave that out, you know? Following is an important aspect as well, and we need to follow and team with a serving approach. That really applies to all of us. And if we look to the leader as the only one whose responsibility it is to use their role as an opportunity to serve, I think we're going to miss a lot of the opportunities to see our teams flourish because that mutual service to one another and that recognition that I'm willing to do things for you and the common goal of this team that might require me to sacrifice my own interests, that recognition becomes contagious, and that drives us to want to serve one another. And when we see team members putting the interests of team above self, it really, I think, propels that performance to places that it wouldn't otherwise go.

Al: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So, yeah, servant teamsmanship, well, that's something to think more about. And we certainly do talk a lot about servant leadership, but that's great, insightful.

So, creating a healthy team takes intentionality and investment, and you use the term intentional retreating. I like that term. And you use that term to describe retreats and programing efforts. And again, at the beginning, you mentioned about how important the power of experience is. So what does an intentional-retreat experience look like, and how does it build into the strength of a team?

Rusty: Well, I think that so often—this is true for me, and I imagine for some of the listeners, this may be true—it is very difficult oftentimes to step back from the daily operations of our lives in any sphere of our lives, whether that be home, our communities, and especially the workplace. The kind of the daily rhythms of today's biggest needs are always going to be there. And I think that retreating as a team is a practice that allows us to step back as a team and focus on something. It's good to know that retreats can serve a variety of purposes. There's not one thing that we retreat for. There's a lot of reasons.

And so if you're going to take a retreat, kind of the first step, after getting it on the calendar, is to say, what outcomes do I want out of this experience? because just setting aside time, if you do that, it's helpful, but you're going to miss some of the benefit if there's not a clear purpose to the time. So when you set those outcomes, it allows you to really accomplish something. But when we step back, great things happen.

It's very hard to lift our heads up when we're in the day to day, and so retreats give us a chance to move away from the norm and see things in a new light. We use retreats for a variety of purposes: we use them for planning, we use them for community building, we use them for team development, and sometimes for all of the above, with intentional kind of different components there. But ultimately, they just give us a chance to engage with one another in a way that's outside the norm. And when we say intentional, what we mean by that is it's not going to happen on accident and won’t get on the calendar on accident, and the outcomes that you want to see happen in the experience won't happen on accident. And so when we sit down and plan those, we can kind of craft an agenda that accomplishes what we want there.

We've seen teams retreat for, you know, you can do it for a half day, a day, off site, on site. There's a lot of different ways to do it, but ultimately it needs to be a part of our rhythm if we want to grow.

Al: Yeah. So, a rhythm. So, just one-off retreats. Call it good; we'll do it again sometime in the future. But there should be more of a rhythm, you're suggesting.

Rusty: Yeah. I think, you know, we have, for example, annually we have a staff retreat, so that's our entire team. And the purpose of that retreat changes each year, but ultimately, it's a community experience. And so that's on the calendar every year.

Al: Yeah.

Rusty: We have a strategic planning retreat each year. The teams within the organization might have developmental retreats that they kind of keep a rhythm of. There's a sense in which, yeah, if it happens just one off, that it's probably going to be less valuable than when we can plan it as a room.

Al: Yeah. And I'm looking forward to having more retreats in the future because we certainly have been starving for community-building opportunities. Well, this has been a great perspective in having focused time together.

So what are some of the ways to build community and connection in a team? You know, are there some practices that teams can incorporate into their regular weekly or monthly rhythms that promote community, especially these days when teams have hardly been meeting in person, and maybe even ideas on how we can do that while we're in a hybrid role, partially meeting online?

Rusty: Yeah. You know, I think, generally speaking, there are some principles that can really apply to in-person teams and remote teams. You're right; it can be very challenging. Our teams experienced this. We have been remote for much of the last two years, and that's very new for us. We are very used to in-person connection. But I think if we know the high-level principles and components of community, then we can look to apply those, whatever our environment and our context.

We highlight, typically, five components of a strong community: a powerful purpose, time together, sacrificial service, challenging one another to grow and change, and celebrating and mourning together. Those are five things that we think really are present in communities that are strong and thriving. And so the challenge from there becomes, how do we work those things into our roles, our teams? How do we make sure that those are present? Some of that's going to happen just by individuals diving in those things and pursuing them. But most of that needs to happen because we intentionally plan for it, and we put things in place.

So, there's a lot of ways to do that. You can do that through, I mentioned our annual staff retreat. That's a rhythm that we have. It's purposely designed to make sure that each year we have one offsite experience with our whole team. And that's been everything from local trips to trips all across the country, even outside of the country. But those typically involve a lot of fun, a lot of development, a lot of reflection, a lot of pieces there that allow us to engage with one another. That's kind of a big step.

But you can also have, you know, whether it's monthly or quarterly community days that you put on your calendar, invite families—that's great if you're in person—families to come. Getting to know one another’s families helps with that. Choosing service opportunities to do together is a great way. Choosing things that you'll celebrate. Put them on the calendar. It might be birthdays, work anniversaries, goals that you accomplish, key milestones as a team. Put those things on the calendar. You can celebrate together when those times come.

For remote teams, during the last two years while we were remote, we had a team come in and do a virtual experience for us, where we did a coffee-and-tea tasting virtually. We all had things shipped to us. But that can be communication. A messaging channel where you have groups for sharing wins or asking for help or sharing growth resources that you have. Anything that facilitates conversation, getting to know one another is huge.

Sometimes that can be as simple as, at the beginning of every meeting, we make sure that—say a team has a recurring meeting. We set aside the first ten minutes, and we say we're going to ask questions to get to know each other personally here so we can know and be known in the process of being on this team. There's probably an infinite number of ways that can take place. But I think the big takeaway is we all have to look at our job description and put Community Builder as a bullet point on there, and say that if I’m on a team and I want us to thrive, I need to be committed to building community with this group of people and making sure that we're about the relationships with one another as much as we are the results that we're getting.

Al: Because that's how the results are accomplished, aren’t they, that's through people.

I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: Welcome back as I continue my conversation with WinShape’s, Rusty Chadwick.

Rusty, I'm going to ask you to go back. People are saying, “Gosh, I'm driving along here. I need to know those five key items, five ways that you mentioned, starting with powerful purpose.” Why don't you repeat those again.

Rusty: Absolutely. Yeah. So a powerful purpose. It starts with knowing why does this team exist? Why are we here? What are we about? What's the thing that we're pursuing together that draws us together? The second one is time together. There's really no substitute for time together when it comes to building community. We got to know each other. The third one is sacrificial service. When people are willing to be served and to serve others on the team, that builds community. The fourth one is challenging one another to grow and change. There's a sense in which growth, like the coauthor you mentioned of the book Team Work, Russ Sarratt has been my supervisor for years and years, and he has been known to say, “There's only two options. We’re either growing or we’re dying. One of the two.” And so growth is so important that when we push each other and challenge each other to grow, that fosters a sense of community as well. And then lastly, celebrate and mourn together. I think both are important. Celebrating, share wins with one another, but also being there for each other in difficult times binds us together in a powerful way.

Al: Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks.

You know, you challenge people to examine their own perspective related to issues on a team. And this reminds us of the warning of our rearview mirror: objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Rusty: Yes.

Al: What are some examples of team members being too close to an issue, and how do you encourage people to gain the right perspective or to gain perspective at all?

Rusty: Yeah. Unfortunately, we don't get the same warning in our lives. I think if we had that side-view-mirror warning in our lives, it would be helpful because the idea there is we're looking into a mirror that says, and it's telling you, here's reality. You know, a car is where I see it. The manufacturer of the vehicle knows that’s actually not reality. The car is closer than it seems, and so they warn you of that. In our lives, whatever we see is the reality that we seem to experience.

You know, examples of this on a team can be anything as small as an email or communication that triggers a sense of urgency or an emotional reaction, that all of a sudden, I'm too close to this, and it's hit me, and I'm triggered. It could be a challenging decision that just becomes overwhelming, and we begin to feel like this decision is so important that it outweighs everything else: a task, a project that overtakes our thinking, a conversation in a meeting that takes on a life of its own. I don't know if any of the listeners have experienced this, but I've had this happen many times, where a conversation begins, everyone adds their thoughts, and next thing you know, you’re 30 minutes in, and this has become very important, and it's taken over your whole agenda. And if you were to just step back, you’d realize this is really not as important as we've allowed it to become in the midst of this conversation.

Our proximity to something can easily distort our perception of its relative size. And I think that's, when I think about getting perspective, I think that's a huge thing to acknowledge because that allows us to say, if we want to gain perspective, oftentimes the first thing we have to do is to step back and take a look at the whole landscape and remind ourselves of where whatever it is that we're too close to fits in the midst of things. It may be as big as it seems, but probably it's not. And when we have the proper understanding of its size and importance in the whole scheme of things, I think it allows us to put the right amount of time and energy toward it. So I think the first way to gain perspective is to step back.

The second one, I think, is to slow down. When we're moving too fast, it's very difficult to evaluate our reality, I think, in a way that allows us to see things as they really are. So slowing down is really important.

And then sometimes I think when our perspective is off, it's less of a proximity situation and more of missing information. And so I think a lot of times digging deeper is a great way to gain perspective, asking more questions. If I feel like something is maybe too close to it or I feel like something is, I'm not understanding it well, ask questions, learn more, get some diverse thinking around it to make sure that I have enough perspective on the matter before moving forward.

Al: Oh, those are great, great insights. Yeah. I don't know if anybody's ever been in a meeting where somebody got triggered over some issue. I know I've been triggered, and that seems to be a recipe for a thing that’s going downhill pretty quickly. But to step back and to get perspective, to slow down, to dig deeper, and, of course, self-leadership is part of this too, where we are in good shape ourselves and where we're having good disciplines through our day from even personal quiet times and prayer and contemplation helps us get perspective as well. Yeah.

So, we always have to be ready to respond to change in our work environments, and change can have a ripple effect, impacting more than just one team. The impact of change goes beyond business performance to also affect the team's outlook and motivation. And as leaders, how do we help our teams respond to change? I mean, change is happening all the time. And how do we get our leaders to respond to change in a healthy, productive way?

Rusty: You know, I think you just mentioned something, Al, that I think is very—I totally agree with you on self-care, and I think that's a huge piece here. As leaders, one of the first steps we can take to helping our teams respond to change well is to model good self-care. Let them see in us people who have recognized the need for caring for ourselves. As you mentioned, personal quiet time, rest, exercise, just all those things that we hear and we know help us to be healthier individuals, but that we often neglect. We model that for our teams, and then we encourage them to develop those habits, and we resource and equip them, if we can, to do that.

Our beliefs drive our attitudes, and those drive our behaviors. So oftentimes when our behaviors are a reflection of what we believe, and so we've got to remind ourselves that good self-care truly is critical to behaving in the way that we want. If we're showing up into a meeting or at work or in any sphere of life, run down, tired, not well fueled, all those things that we know can help us be healthy, we're much more likely to react improperly to change. When someone mentions something, it’s going to trigger us emotionally much more quickly when we're running on empty and we haven’t invested in ourselves the way we need to do. So I think that modeling good self-care and encouraging team members to do this, to have good self-care habits, is a great way to help our team members respond healthily.

We often talk about the difference in responding to change and reacting to change. Reacting is kind of that knee-jerk, first thought, I feel it, I say it; whereas responding is more measured, it's considered, and we have a chance to take in any new information or a change of any type. And then we choose how we're going to respond to that.

So as leaders, we can help our people have a little bit of space to prepare. I think we set them up for better success if we can give information not at the last minute, gather input before making decisions that's going to impact others. Those are ways that we allow our team members to not have to have so much self-discipline to manage in the moment, the receiving of just information that’s, “Whoa, where’d that come from?”

I think another component of that, Al, is knowing the people on our teams well. Who is someone who you think, if I take this person aside one on one before a big meeting and give them a little bit of insight into something I'm about to share, that's going to serve them really, really well, because they just need a few minutes to be able to process thoughts before they're in with a group of people. What a great service to them. And it's very easy to do when we know someone and their tendencies.

One last thing that I think we can do that comes to mind there is—and this is something, again, I shared from Russ Sarratt, who I mentioned earlier—he is always reminding me of this: coach team members to focus on what will be gained rather than what will be lost. In the midst of change, our first thought is very often to think about all the things that will be different, the things that we're going to lose, when this new reality is upon us. And if we can really challenge our teams and ourselves to focus on what will be gained, then we're able to look forward, look to the future, to a new reality. And that, I think, will allow us to be more healthy in our response.

Al: Yeah. I love those four items. I mean, that's a book in itself. When we deal with change, and we're dealing a lot with change, I just think back of how we dealt individually as leaders in COVID, you know, and self-care, right at the top of the list. And your point is leaders will often model self-care, but this has been my case. But I'm hesitant to actually encourage others to take care of themselves with self-care. And I think, well, they see what I'm doing; they'll figure it out. But I think as a leader, we can encourage others to practice their own spiritual disciplines, to model self-care, whatever it is. Yeah, that's great. And then give time to people to respond rather than just react to new things, to change, yeah. And of course, knowing people on the team, having good experiences so that people know other people on their team, yeah. And then the final point you mentioned, yeah, just focus on—you know, it’s essentially focus on the positive. You know, coach team members on what will be gained as a result of the change. Those are great outcomes. Yeah, thanks, Rusty.

You know, we often focus on leaders and how they can set up their teams for success. In your book, you emphasize that this isn't just a responsibility for the leader. What are some of the qualities and attributes for each member of a team that they can embrace and contribute to create a healthy work environment? That's something I'm very interested in.

Rusty: Yes, and there are so many. And this is really, Al, this is why Russ and I wrote Team Work because we felt like there's so much out there for leaders. There's so many resources that help and equip leaders. But oftentimes, the message could be that team members think, yeah, it's the leader's responsibility. Let them deal with it. If something's wrong it’s because the leader’s not doing it right. And certainly, not to diminish at all the role of a leader, leaders have an incredibly influential position, and their impact on a team is outsized because of their role, but team members have a vital role to play in healthy teams.

We say that teams are strong and healthy when their purposes are accomplished and their people are fulfilled. Purposes are accomplished and people are fulfilled. If both of those things are happening, then a team is healthy. And team members should feel empowered to know—hopefully, we would want team members to be empowered because they have such a key role in that—we kind of break down the qualities or attitudes a team member can have into two categories. So we say that for team members to really serve on their teams well, they need to be strong in two areas. The first is personal excellence, and the second is sacrificial service.

So we break down our sort of 13 ways that team members can help their teams be successful into those two categories. Personal excellence, I was thinking back, the very first question, I think, on our Best Christian Workplaces Survey talks about that. You know, the team members I work with are committed to excellence in their work. And so we see that. So showing up ourselves in a way that serves the team is the first component.

We saw this. We spent some time, a few years ago, we decided we wanted to study healthy teams. What makes them successful? And so we reached out to an adventure-racing team. Adventure racing is a sport that many are not familiar with, but it's a multi-disciplined sport. It's done by teams at the professional level, the world level, it's a four-person team. And they paddle, they trek and run, and they mountain bike. They use a map and compass to navigate a series of checkpoints from start to finish. It's a grueling endurance sport. The world championships often take four or five days, and teams don't sleep much because the clock never stops. And they do it all by human power. It’s probably one of the most incredible environments I’ve ever seen to study a team because teams are required to be within 100 meters of each other the whole time. And so you really have to move as a unit. And crossing the finish line by yourself doesn't do any good. It's when the whole team crosses.

Al: Hm.

Rusty: And we asked Stu Lynch, who's the member of probably the most successful adventure-racing team of all time that I know of, and we asked him, “What would you tell a new team member?” And he said, “Well, first, make sure you're okay. First, take care of yourself, because if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing, then the team is going to take care of you the whole time, and that's not going to be helpful.” So he said, “New members come into adventure-racing teams, and oftentimes they're so focused on helping everybody else that they get into a hole themselves, and that's not great.” So focusing on personal excellence is the first step. So, how do I own my role? Make sure I'm doing those things that I am individually responsible for. That's a key first quality.

And that also can extend beyond just—personal excellence is not just doing my role, but also being self-aware, making sure that I'm contributing and understanding how people see me and how I'm showing up for the team is part of that personal-excellence piece. Being trustworthy. So personal excellence is part one.

The second piece of that is sacrificial service. And you know, the same team member, Stu Lynch, who I mentioned from the adventure-racing team, he said, “First, make sure you're okay.” But he said, “Then what makes a team truly successful is when someone is not just walking along asking, ‘Am I doing everything I'm supposed to be doing?’ but they're constantly asking themselves the question, ‘Am I currently doing everything I can be doing to make sure this team is getting a good result?’”

And to me, that was such a profound statement, because the difference in that and “Am I doing everything I'm supposed to be doing?” is huge. If we as team members are asking ourselves regularly, “Am I doing everything I can be doing to make sure this team is getting a good result?” then that takes the focus off myself, puts it on the team, our common purpose, and one another. And when that happens, we start to share resources with each other. We start to ask others if they need help. We start to own more than our role when appropriate, looking for ways that I can serve what the team needs. In adventure racing, which is probably not what most of our listeners spend all of their time doing, but that looked like carrying two backpacks because the other person on the team needed help. And “We're moving as a unit, and we're going to move faster if I help you, knowing that later on, you're going to carry mine for me because I'm going to need it,” not thinking, “If I give you mine now, what if I get tired, and then I'm the one who's suffering in the back?”

In our workplaces, that might look like asking a team member if they need some extra budget dollars that we have because their project could use some extra, some money, as opposed to saying, “Oh, I'd like to keep that for myself.” That might look like any number of things. Serving sacrificially is the other component to that. So personal excellence and sacrificial service, I think, are the two big categories.

Al: I really appreciate that. Just recently I was asked the question, you know, who's responsible for a healthy culture? You know, who's responsible for a flourishing culture? Is it the leader, or is it the team member, or is it both? And my response immediately is it's both. And as you said, you know, leaders have an oversized share of the responsibility, but still, every person on a team is responsible, has some level of responsibility for making sure that they have a flourishing workplace culture.

And boy, I like those two questions. You know, am I taking care of myself? You know, am I owning my own role? Am I being self-aware and being trustworthy from a self standpoint? But then also, are they asking the question, am I doing everything I can to make sure that our team has a good result? Boy, I love that, yeah. Thanks, Rusty.

Well, gosh, we've learned so much from our conversation. And I'm just going back, thinking, how do I even begin to summarize our conversation? But I love your five points of building community, because in reality, our workplace is our community, and our leaders need to think, how do we build community? So having a powerful purpose, having time together, having sacrificial service, and times of challenging, where we challenge each other to grow and change. And then celebrating and mourning together, that was something that we don't really talk about much. But yeah, there are times where we need to mourn and move on from disappointments, aren't there. Yeah. Then, the whole four steps of change, just when we're going through change. And gosh, haven't we've been through a lot of change in the last couple of years? But first of all, it's about self-care, making sure we're taking care of ourself and encouraging others to do the same; to respond versus react to the change; to know the people on our team. And again, it’s relationships, all about relationships, and taking time to make sure we know and check in with people on our team. And then, you know, coach our team members, what's going to be gained as a result of the change? Let’s not focus on the negative. That really takes us down a hole we don't want to go in too many times. But hope is really important, isn't it, Rusty? Yeah.

Rusty: Yes. Yes.

Al: How about, Rusty, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Rusty: I think, as I reflect on teams, as I reflect on our conversation, it's just kind of on my heart to say, teaming is tough. It's hard. It's hard to team. You're bringing together multiple people, personalities, worldviews, experiences. You know, oftentimes we say that teams are great because they're diverse, and we get to blend personalities. And that's true. That is what really helps teams be successful. We have complementary skills and different ways of looking at things. But when it comes time to actually put that into practice, that also creates a lot of tension and a lot of challenges because you wouldn't do it the way I would do it. And in real time, that is not always as easy as it seems on paper, but I think it's worth it. Teams are—not only can they accomplish great things, but they can be incredibly fulfilling. The experience of being on a team with others who are mutually committed to your benefit and the common goal is a powerful experience.

When you have someone else to share the burden with you, someone else to rejoice—I live in Georgia, and so the Braves just won the World Series. And when I think of the end of a baseball series, the first thing that happens when that last out is gotten and the team has won is the entire team charges the center of the field, and they jump on top of each other in a huge pile. And that, to me, is a great example of the power of shared experiences, of teams doing something together. They immediately want to join with one another and celebrate. It's hard, but it's worth it.

I heard a gentleman speak one time, named Alastair Humphreys, at a conference. It was a very small venue, and he is an adventurer. One of the experiences that he had had was cycling around the world. I believe it took him around four years to do it. And someone asked him, “What was the hardest part of the whole journey when you cycled around the world?” And he said, “It was the very first mile.” The first step out the door, leaving behind the comforts of home and stepping outside. He referenced a phrase that he had heard, the doorstep mile, and that was always the hardest one.

And I think that can be the case with teams as well. For individuals on a team who are saying, “How do I step in and serve my team well?” it can be a bit daunting to begin sacrificing for others; to put my fate in the hands of others, in a sense; to sacrifice for them. But ultimately, it's worth it. I think that first step might be the hardest because selfish behavior is contagious, but selfless behavior is contagious as well, and it builds on itself. And so when we take that first step—maybe it's just one conversation; one small retreat that the team takes; one effort towards building community; one conversation where I ask someone how they're doing, before I jump right into the work of the day—each of those becomes easier when we do it one more time and one more time. And then those rhythms are established, and next thing you know, we're starting to see the fruits of that investment. And I believe that the flourishing that can take place there will really fuel the future success as it comes.

Al: Well, this is great, Rusty. Yeah, let's take that first step. I appreciate that.

Well, Rusty, thanks so much for your contributions. Most of all, I appreciate your devotion to helping leaders and teams flourish by providing transformational experiences for others. What a great conversation. Thanks for taking out your time and for speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Rusty: Thanks, Al. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, and thanks for all the work that you and your organization do to help teams flourish and individuals flourish. What a wonderful, what a wonderful thing. And we've been blessed by it, and thank you for your investment.

Al: Thank you.

Well, thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Rusty, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find out ways to connect with him and links to everything we talked about in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And leaders, would you please help us achieve our goal to see a thousand flourishing Christian-led workplaces in the year 2030? Imagine a world where a thousand Christian-led workplaces set the standard as the best, most-effective places to work in the world. Well, how can you help?, you might ask. Well, please share this podcast with another leader. Or if you haven't already, launch an Engagement Survey in your organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, email al@workplaces.org, or go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Next week, you're going to love my conversation about building character into your leadership. Well, join me with a key leader of the large NewSpring Church in South Carolina.