What To Do When Quick Wins Aren't Working

 Is the pursuit of quick wins undermining your leadership potential? Are they causing you to lose sight of what actually works?

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In this episode of Web 3 and Thrive I debunk common misconceptions about quick wins and 'proving yourself' in leadership roles.

I share real-life examples of leaders ( my clients) who've grappled with the temptation of quick wins, and what they chose to do instead.

I'll also share the six pivotal questions to answer, before you hard in to any trust-building efforts, and the compelling research on the power of trust in boosting team morale and performance.

But trust-building doesn't stop at leadership. It's the bedrock of successful, sustainable relationships too.

This episode compels you to think deeply about trust, alignment, and goals before leaping into action and how you can start applying these fundamental practise at work today.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction: The Importance of Trust in Leadership

02:03
The Role of Trust in Leadership Success

03:17
The Impact of Relationship Building on Team Morale and Performance

05:12
Key Questions to Ask When Building Trust

10:15
The Pitfalls of Quick Wins and Urgency in Leadership

12:38
Shifting from Results to Building Trust

15:32
The Importance of Deep Work in Building Trust

16:01
Conclusion: Building Trust for Long-Term Success

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey, welcome, that was you, alex, okay, hey, welcome back to Web 3 and Thrive. Today I want to speak to you about gaining trust in leadership. Have you ever felt like you're constantly trying to get approval, you're constantly trying to get results and you're doing all of this to create a safe space for your role in the company? You are trying to feel safe. Maybe, to build this trust, you've tried something like a quick win method. You've tried to go in there, make change happen really quickly and hope that these quick wins are going to get trust and then, in return, cement your role and help you to stay in that company successfully without getting fired right. Maybe that's something that you've been doing recently. It's something that I see quite often and it's something that my clients come to me with, and it's often a blind spot for my clients. So I've got one example here of a person who worked in a really big role in a very decentralized company and this was all new to him. He didn't quite understand how to navigate this company, didn't understand the people, didn't understand what trust was for them in this company, and so he came in trying to get a quick wins and, honestly, he ended up pissing lots of people off, and that made me reflect on times when this has happened to me. I worked in a big exchange, and when I moved over to a Chinese exchange, it was all very confusing for me. What had worked in the western side of the culture didn't work in the Chinese side, and what I mean was we built trust a different way, and so I had to learn to build trust not just through quick wins, but through transparency, communication and relationships, and so that's what I want to talk to you about today. The fact is, you need to build trust to get results. Quick wins aren't going to cut it, especially if you want to be there for the long run. Now, a study by DDI in 2021 found that internally hired leaders so people who were internally hired, they moved up in their role were more successful than those who were external hires. So, in other words, internally recruited leaders are more likely to be successful than those who are from the outside and from different organizations.

Speaker 1: 2:37

And what is the golden thread? Oh, hit the mic. And what is the golden thread throughout all of this? Well, it's trust in relationships the people who are hired internally. We already knew that. Stop. They already knew that they could be relied on. They'd already built trust in relationships and now all they needed was to just learn new skills. In fact, the people who were internally recruited had about $3,400 a year spent on their leadership development internally to help them get to that level. So this shows us that trust is at the core of everything that we do. The people stop. Another study from the Journal of Business Ethics illustrated that leaders who focus on relationship building have teams with higher morale and performance metrics compared to those who prioritise immediate results, which shows why we need to work so hard on getting this right.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Another example that I saw with one of my clients recently actually was they got laid off. One of the reasons why they got laid off was they had a few different reasons and it was not a good fit, but one of them was you tried to make change too quickly. By trying to make change too quickly, you pissed everybody off, like my other example before. Like my other client, the people that you were trying to make the change happen didn't really understand why you were trying to change things. My client who got in there with good intentions very successful woman understood what she needed to do, but because she hadn't understood what the other people wanted what the company actually needed, then it just didn't work. They found that the people who were working around her were really offended, sometimes by some of the suggestions, because they were like wait is what I've got not valuable? Why are your ideas coming first? I knew here right. So there's a lot of confusion and it was a real struggle for my client to understand that this is one of the reasons that led towards her being laid off. Now, fast forward a few months and she really understands why this didn't work, and we've actively worked on trying to solve it. And it actually all started with an understanding of what does trust mean and an understanding of why is this so important in the first place that I'm willing to take a risk and create these quick wins and prove myself and have the risk of it not working. Why am I doing this? Why am I putting my head on the line by taking quick wins that I think are going to save me in the short term? Stop that I think are going to save me long term? Right, it just didn't make sense. This risk taking wasn't worth it because it never seemed to work out. The trust wasn't there, so we didn't exercise and I'm going to go through this with you today.

Speaker 1: 5:34

There are six pivotal questions that we need to ask ourselves in these kinds of situations, and if you're going through this right now, I suggest that you grab a pen and pause this in between each question, if you have to. Okay, so if you're trying to build trust, you're trying to prove yourself, you're trying to cement yourself in this business and keep your job and be successful, I want you to understand, or I want you to start asking the question what happens when you get trust? What's the end in your head? What's the ultimate goal? What are you actually striving for? Because if you ask yourself what happens when you get trust, or if you tell yourself, stop, I'll delete that sentence. If you ask yourself, oh, I just want to, I want to get trust, like, why do I want to get trust? Stop, oh, my God, sorry. If you don't know what happens when you get trust, how do you know what you're working towards? I'll give you an example my client, her idea of what happens when she got trust, like, her end in her head was she felt accepted and she felt valuable. Okay, now there's another layer to this, which is why do we need other people to validate us and make us feel valuable, but that's another story. However, this is what we're going here for with this question. Okay, get that down.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Next question how will you feel? What emotions will you feel when you have gained this trust, if you haven't gotten trust? Third question if you haven't gotten trust as a leader yet, what have you been doing? List all the things that you have been doing that you think haven't helped you build trust yet. Is it actually true that you haven't gotten trust yet? Okay, consider this because, honestly, you might not understand what you're actually looking for when it comes to trust. So, think about that. What lessons? Number four what lessons have you learned in this process? Right, it's not working. You haven't gained the trust yet, as far as you understand. What lessons have you learned in this process? What can you do differently?

Speaker 1: 8:09

And the last question what's a big fear For me? It was I will get fired and have no money. That was my fear. Right, if I don't get this trust, they're going to fire me because they don't like me, they don't like my work, and then I'll have no money. Yours might be different, yours might be. I'm scared that I'm going to lose my reputation, or my partner is going to get stressed out that I'm not pulling my weight and I'm no good and they're going to leave me right. Worst case scenario. Or maybe you're scared that you're never going to get an opportunity like this again, like this is an amazing, huge opportunity that you've managed to get yourself in, or get yourself and attract yourself. But what if you lose it? Okay, trust. You're like putting trust in a pedestal, but you're not really. You're not really sure how to get to trust. This fear part is quite a big deal, so sit with it.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And, as Rob Dal Jr always says and something that I sometimes adopt in my conversations with clients is the seven layers of why. So, if your fear is, I will get fired and have no money, why, okay, why is that important? Okay, well, if I have no money, then I'm not going to be able to afford organic food or like good food for my kids. Why is that important? Well, I want my kids to be healthy and grow up and be nourished and not have any health problems. Okay, why is that important? Okay, so you keep going and going with the layers. Do that on that question Now. By reflecting on these questions, you will clearly be able to see why you need trust. You'll also be able to see where you could be going wrong, and it'll lead perfectly into the next part of this episode. And that is what can you do to start to gain trust Now, sorry, alex.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Now when you first step into a new leadership position, or even when you're well into a role and you feel like urgency is driving you Okay, so I've been there. There's this urgency like we have to get it done now because the markets are going to change and like, if I don't get that person to like me, then they're going to get me fired. And it's like you have this idea that there's a huge urgency over what you're doing. There's this urgency to succeed, to prove yourself, to get big wins, or enter your fear I will fail. Enter your fear, people won't like me. Okay, whatever your fear is, if you don't do this, then this will happen. So every time clients come to me with the whole narrative of I just need to get quick wins to prove myself, I say, okay, cool, what happens when you do that? And, honestly, they can't answer me. And so that's why we go through the questions that we've just been through, why I've experienced and seen time and time again with clients just like you is that running at this fast pace can cause a lot of backlash, and when I mean backlash, I mean backlash. So team members get pissed off because they feel unheard.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Your attempt to get quick wins is resulting in changes that are not well received by most people. Your way of doing things isn't how they do things. Teammates feel threatened. You start to see blockers everywhere you look. You don't get any buy in. You don't get responses to messages that you need answering, and it could be as bad as people telling you you know many people don't like you here.

Speaker 1: 11:53

This is a real story from the first client example I gave you. Somebody came to him said you know you're pissing people off and people don't really like you here. Imagine someone saying that to you when all you've been trying to do is get results and help the team, but you've been doing it all the wrong way. So if this is ringing bells, you're in the right place. Today, when this is happening around you, the best thing you can do is stop. Slew the fuck down, because if you ticked all the above boxes, you've probably started to feel a certain way lost, unsupported and that big fear that you already just identified before. It's starting to get louder, okay. So maybe you're waking up in the morning and you're like I'm gonna get fired because I'm not good enough, right? Whatever your fear is, it's very loud right now. And trust it seems to be in a faraway land. You don't even know how to get there.

Speaker 1: 12:52

To change this, we need to shift from getting results to building trust and, in turn, relationships, and there are a few simple steps. Step one communicate transparently and frequently. Step two show understanding and empathy, and I would even go as far as add compassion. This is something that I talk about a lot. And three is align with the personal goals of your team and the organisational goals, and the best way to get started with understanding all this is to reflect on your intentions in this role. Okay, so there's three things Communicate transparently, show understanding and empathy, and align to the goals. Before we do that, let's reflect.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Number one these are questions again, by the way. Go grab your notebook again and write this down. Pause, if you need to. Number one what are you trying to achieve in this role? Is it experience? Is it growth? Knowing this helps you to understand why you're even here in this role or in this business? Okay, gives you a bit of awareness. Number two what is the big mission for you and the team as a whole? Now, if you don't know this, you need to go and find this out. And number three how does your mission align with everybody else's mission, or doesn't it? Go and find that out too, or write it down now.

Speaker 1: 14:28

There's absolutely no way to move forward without understanding this. So get all of the answers down and start to notice what is missing. I actually go into the stop our breath. I actually go into the full process of building trust, relationships and finally getting by in and, ultimately, sustainable results. In my free mini course, trust to results you can get it at learnweb3nthrivecom forward slash, trust and results.

Speaker 1: 15:01

So, as I said, there's absolutely no way to get through this without going deep. You need to get reflection on the trust. You need to get reflection on the goals, the alignment, the other people that you're working with first, before we do anything else. So now, if you've listened to this, stop and you're probably thinking Emily, just give me the answers. Sorry, maggie, stop. Sorry, my dears. That's not how it works. We have to do the deep work before we can do the top work, stop before we can do the other work.

Speaker 1: 15:34

So I hope that after listening to this episode today, you'll understand that quick wins are not sustainable and they definitely don't build trust if that's all we focus on.

Speaker 1: 15:45

But once we understand why trust is important, the fears behind it and the goals of ourselves and the company we are able to start building sustainably and intentionally, to start working towards buying a long-term success Sounds good, right, and I know, because this is something that I've done.

Speaker 1: 16:03

It's something that my clients implement and it works, and this is why I actually put together the trustee results mini course. So do the work first and if you can't remember, if you didn't have a pen and paper, listen back through to the podcast or go to learnweb3thrivecom forward slash trust and results and it's all in there. You'll get five emails and they'll come through each day, so you're not rushing ahead, you've got time to do it and then at the end, you get loads of bonuses. So go through there, let me know how you get on and at the end of it, you're going to be able to understand how you're going to build trust, how you're going to build relationships and how you're going to get buying. It's a full circle. Let me know how you get on and have a great day. Speak soon.