In this episode of the Saturday Morning Muse, Andrew Temte discusses the evolution of money, emphasizing the critical role of trust and confidence in economic systems. He explores how governments have historically been involved in issuing money to enhance trust, referencing the Code of Hammurabi as an early legal framework. The conversation also touches on the U.S. dollar's status as a reserve currency and the implications of the US national debt on global trust in the currency.

I speak frequently about the benefits of adopting a continuous improvement mindset and practice—so much so that the premise of my second book, The Balanced Business, is that smooth workflows create an environment that fosters organizational accountability and allows trust to flourish. There are many preconditions to the establishment of smooth workflows, but one of the most important is to create clarity about how the work gets done in your business.

Operating in the absence of organizational clarity means that unwritten rules and ad hoc processes become the norm. Since nothing is codified and communicated, the organization’s culture becomes one of firefighting and crisis management. Fiefdoms are established, job protectionism flourishes, and information about what’s really going on is traded like state secrets.

Applied in a business context, a team that possesses a strong sense of balance performs well under pressure and is not buffeted nearly as violently by the winds of change and external competitive pressures compared to a team that lacks a keen sense of balance. But what does balance look like in business?

So today’s lesson is this. Yes, as a leader, people are going to talk about you. Someone is probably talking about you right now. The good news is that you have control about what they’re saying and the irony is that you’ll sleep better and your ears will stop buzzing if you’re transparent, authentic, clear, and structured. Oh, and sprinkling in a bit of humility, a sense of humor, and a dash of vulnerability won’t hurt either.

In a healthy team or organization, there is a spirit of learning and continuous improvement that is shared by each individual. There is shared purpose, strong communication, a sense of stewardship, well-defined goals and standard work, cross-training, backups, smooth handoffs, empowerment to pull the Andon Cord (to stop the assembly line in the case of an issue), and a laser focus on delighting the customer.

I believe the replacement phrase for constructive criticism is influenced by the relationship between sender/receiver and the depth of knowledge the sender has. In all cases, we should retain the word constructive, as our goal in human discourse should be to build others up and not tear them down.

There are a few additional aspects of team chemistry that are not included in our list and those are the concepts of finesse and tact. Understanding nuance is also critically important to team chemistry. These are skills that don’t receive much attention in the myriad lists of “top skills for the future,” but I would argue that they form the foundation for all high-functioning teams that sustain their performance over the long term.

We’ve all heard these phrases before: “My team just clicks,” “My team is a well-oiled machine,” “My team is really gelling,” “My team has great chemistry,” and the ever-nauseating “Teamwork makes the dream work.” This week, I’d like to explore the concept of team chemistry to determine if it’s as mysterious as it’s often made out to be, or if there are necessary conditions that underlie team chemistry and make it something we can create and extend from one team to another.

The reality is that we are all different. Every member of a team has a unique set of change curves that is akin to a fingerprint. We all wear a one-size-fits-you pair of lenses that we see and interpret the world through. Assumptions of sameness quickly break down because for any individual change event that occurs—an acquisition, product sunset, or process change, to name just a few—each team member is going to process said change event differently.

I’m nearing my 60th birthday at the close of this coming summer and face a choice very similar to the choice that my parent’s generation faced in the late 1990s. I can either learn more about NLP, LLM, and what’s coming next, or I can tell myself that “I’m too old to learn something new” and be left in the dust—begging my children’s generation for the remainder of my years to help me use the avalanche of new tools and technologies that will undoubtedly sprout from today’s LLM seeds.

If you’re a leader, listen to what your front-line personnel are telling you about what your customers are saying. Actively listen. Meet them on their turf. Tune in directly to customer conversations. Show you care by taking action to improve the experience of your customers. Taking action will result in improved working conditions for your front-line colleagues.