How transparency transforms decision-making on our team
I used to think that there was a lot of truth in the saying, “It’s lonely at the top.” It can be lonely as a leader. There have definitely been times when I felt like I had to make every decision because it was all resting on my shoulders.
Thankfully, I don’t feel that way anymore, and our culture of transparency and feedback is the reason why. Because we talk so openly as a team, I don’t have to make hard decisions alone.
One of those hard decisions came up just last quarter. We had a great quarter overall, but because many of our clients are feeling the pinch from economic challenges, we didn't hit the revenue level that would unlock bonuses for our team. I needed to decide if I was going to give the team a bonus anyway.
We didn’t reach our highest bonus potential in the first quarter of the year, either. I wrote a post about why I decided to give bonuses to my team anyway: I was really proud of our team’s mindset and commitment to making our business the best it can be. Everyone on my team demonstrated a willingness to try new things, take risks, and be innovative, and that brought us some huge wins, like securing our largest contract to date and figuring out how to collaborate on projects we hadn't been able to collaborate on in the past.
This quarter was no different. Even though there were challenges outside of our control, the team crushed it, and I’m really proud of them. We might not have hit our goal, but again, I felt the team deserved bonuses anyway. This time, I had to make a decision about where that money would come from.
I had an idea.
Every year, we set aside money for a team retreat. We had already saved for our retreat this year, which was slated to happen in October. But if we didn’t have the retreat this year, we could repurpose that money for team bonuses instead.
I wasn’t sure if it was the right choice, and I wanted to make the best possible decision. Years ago, I might have struggled with that decision by myself. This time, I knew I could ask my team for their input because of our culture of transparency.
I sent each person a voice message and laid out my idea as well as my concerns. I said that I know our team looks forward to our yearly retreats, so if anyone felt like we needed the relationship time or just simply wanted to have the retreat, we could absolutely do that in lieu of bonuses. I didn’t want to skip the retreat if someone would be really bummed by that, so I presented both options and asked each person to share their honest thoughts with me.
In the end, every person shared that they preferred a bonus over the retreat. They each felt like we're in a really solid place in our relationships. We’ve also been traveling a lot this year and have had chances to spend time together in person, so they didn’t feel that we needed the extra time in October. Within a matter of days—and without having a meeting—we made the decision together to give everyone bonuses.
There’s a big reason why I think the team could make that choice so quickly: We talk openly about our team dynamic, and we evaluate it regularly. Every quarter, we have a review where we look at five different aspects of our team dynamic—relationships, trust, communication, collaboration, and happiness at work—and we each rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. We share our scores out loud and talk about why they are what they are. Then, we average them and look back at the averages from previous quarters to see which categories went up and which ones went down, and we explore why.
Because we make it a habit to talk about our team dynamic often and because we're really honest about how we feel, the team didn’t have to take a guess about where we stand with each other. We know. We all know that our dynamic is really strong because our scores have been really solid all year—all 9s and 10s. We've been intentional about pouring into our culture and relationships, so everyone felt like we could give up our yearly in-person team time without those scores suffering. No one was worried about upsetting someone else by saying they preferred to have a bonus over spending time together in person.
Giving bonuses to my team feels really good, especially at a time when they weren’t expecting to get one. But what feels even better is that everyone on the team felt like they could be honest with me. They could choose the bonus over the retreat and be confident in making that decision because of all the open conversations we've had.
This is the power of a culture with open feedback and transparency, and I’m so grateful for ours.
Do you ever feel alone in making decisions? Do you have a decision weighing on you now? If so, could you go to someone on your team and ask for their thought partnership? If you don’t have a thought partner and you need one, my team and I are here for you! Hit “reply” to this email. We would love to hear from you!
Big hugs,
