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Key Takeaways Companies that prioritize team connection, psychological safety and communication create the foundation needed to scale sustainably.
As businesses grow, leaders must protect their culture and relationships or risk turning growth into misalignment, burnout and turnover.
Successfully scaling a business requires a strong foundation. The right processes must be in place because scaling a flawed process will only magnify its deficiencies. You need to have your finances in order to handle the increase in expenses that comes with any scaling effort.
And perhaps most importantly of all, you need to have strong team connections. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that as valuable as the other elements of scaling are, they will ultimately fall short if you don’t have a strong, closely connected team.
Unlocking the connection between team connections and business growth
It should be no surprise that a team that feels connected and unified will be able to achieve far greater outcomes than teams that are disconnected or even adversarial in nature. Connected teams are built on a foundation of communication and psychological safety that build trust and enable individual team members to work together effectively.
A recent report on the state of workplace culture and connection found that organizations with strong workplace cultures were nearly twice as likely to report significant revenue growth in comparison to culture laggards. Among these culture leaders, team members were nearly sixteen times more likely to regularly receive meaningful recognition from their direct manager, and over nine times as likely to receive such recognition from their peers. Employees at these workplaces were also two times more likely to report feeling strongly connected to their team and direct manager.
Similarly, research from Gallup found that when managers focused on employees’ strengths, employees were twice as likely to be engaged at work. Even more impactful, these employees also enjoyed improved well-being, resulting in higher productivity and fewer health issues.
When employees and managers become more closely connected in the workplace through these and other supportive actions, they begin to form stronger relationships, which are critical for creating a truly cohesive team. In these environments, individual team members learn to leverage each person’s unique strengths as they work together to innovate and solve scaling challenges.
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