Nick Powills: The Sweet Spot of Productive Teams Is Candor and Curiosity

Someone once told me that the sweet spot of a productive team is the blend of candor and curiosity. This stuck with me. Does your team operate this way?

Candor comes from being truthful and honest. When examining the strength of your team, look around the room and decide whether your team is being honest about their opinions or holding back. However, there are a few things that go into this:

1. Are you, as a leader, facilitating an environment that allows for openness?
2. Do you not only ask for the opinions of others but consider them when creating conclusions for next steps in the business?
3. Have you built a truth circle around your team to be able to have tough conversations without feeling defensive?
4. Does your team present problems with solutions?
5. Does your team show an ability to not make everything a fight – meaning, they show a filter to know what to fight for versus argue for the sake of arguing?

With candor, you can access the smart minds of the smart people you have associated yourself with. At the end of the day, you are only one person. If you are able to multiply the depth of your brain to the DNA of others, then, the collective should be incredible for solving any business or personal challenge that may arise.

As for curiosity, this ends up being the sponge – the sponge that helps people learn, grow and apply. For curiosity to work in your environment, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does the work balance allow for brainstorms, research and conversation?
2. If not, then what resources does your team need to help create this environment? Is it another person on the team? Is it more structure?
3. Do you hold true to a process of hunting for solutions? Meaning, when someone comes to you with a challenge, do you provide them the answer or do you lead them toward figuring it out with their own curiosity?

Highly productive teams typically lead to highly productive businesses – especially when the vision is defined, everyone understands their role in winning and candor and curiosity are working hand-in-hand.

What fascinates me about business is that the gap between good and great is not that large. Often, it’s being disciplined to create the best team possible and doing the little things as well as possible.

Creating an environment of safe and productive conversations will help you be one step closer to winning with a great team.