Working Together as a Strong Team
While some of our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) members have been on Heaven Hill’s ELT since its inception, we have added five new members over the last three years, and as you know, the two of us recently assumed leadership as Co-Presidents in September 2022.
With our Spirited Commitment core behaviors, “Improve Every Day” and “Work Together to Win” in mind, our ELT is dedicated to becoming the strongest, most effective team we can be to lead Heaven Hill into its next chapter of success.
Like any team, we are continually working on things to enhance our effectiveness like better understanding each other’s leadership styles, establishing ways of working, prioritizing our work, and clarifying decision making. As we all know, trust is at the foundation of any effective team, and fostering trust does not come without dedication. To accomplish this, our team has implemented a few best practices that we think any team can benefit from.
Are you looking for ways to increase your team’s effectiveness? Try these tactics!
1. Set Aside Time
In November as our new team was starting to form for the first time, we had a series of team workshops that continued into January and February. Yes, there were other things we could’ve been doing, but we found that laying this intentional foundation helped each team member to align on what we’re ultimately working toward and the beginnings of how to do so productively.
2. Build Trust
The bedrock by which any triumphant team operates is trust. Trust is not automatic! After welcoming our newest ELT member Chief Marketing Officer Matt Blevins to join us, the ELT focused on setting ground rules to guide our behaviors. To align our team’s operations with Heaven Hill’s standards, these ground rules are rooted in Spirited Commitment.
3. Support Each Other
To go above and beyond feelings of trust, teams must act in support of each member. Our ELT emphasizes the importance of honest conversations and asking the question, “How can we support you?” When we clarify needs, we can set aside emotion and act responsibly. Sometimes this even means fully supporting team decisions even if one of us would’ve chosen a different path on our own.
4. Make a Clear Plan
To run the business in the short term and plan for the long term as well, we’ve found that making a clear plan is key. Clear plan creation often requires role clarification and decision making. Each of our ELT members has dialed in on leading strategic and operational direction, driving Heaven Hill’s culture and developing and managing talent. As a team, we have implemented optimal practices for how we operate that are rooted in research. Some of these practices include meeting weekly for 30 focused minutes, gathering monthly for half of a day to maintain short-term business needs, setting quarterly full-day meetings for long term planning, and striving to stick to an agenda. (We are definitely still working on this latter one 😊)
5. Follow Through
Planning doesn’t mean anything if you don’t follow through. For example, if we plan to attend 30-minute huddles every Wednesday morning but half of us don’t show up, the plan becomes null. Effective teams lay the groundwork and then they follow through. This is exactly what our team has committed to serve you, our Heaven Hill team, to the best of our ability.
