Episode 98 & 99: How to Build a High Performance Team with Natalie Dawson

 

Natalie Dawson is the EVP and Partner of Cardone Ventures, a management consulting firm designed to help businesses grow. She’s also the author of the new book, TeamWork: How to Build a High-Performance Team. This book covers all the nuts and bolts of what goes into building an incredible team including what it takes to attract strong talent, how to write a compelling job description, and even the best practices for onboarding someone new.

Natalie Dawson is an expert in developing people and building scalable teams. She has interviewed, hired, trained, and led thousands of employees over the course of her career, most recently as Co-Founder and Partner of Cardone Ventures, a management consulting, joint ventures, and private equity firm that helps business owners achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals through the growth of their business. With no cost of capital, no outside investment, in 30 months Cardone Ventures has generated 60 million in revenue and over 30 million in EBITDA. Natalie is responsible for the operations and finding, hiring, aligning, developing and retaining the team that allows the business to scale profitably.

Main Topic Notes

  • How can you predict whether new hires will be a good fit for the rest of the team?

    • What are your 5-year professional goals?

    • Personality assessment (R3 assessment) - measure stability

    • DISC Assessment or Myers Briggs

  • Tell us about some mistakes you've made and what you learned from them?

  • How do you pitch an idea or a vision to a team? How do you get them all on board?

    • Vision: Imagine a world (share with them the vision)

    • Commitment: Ask them to deliver something specific, you make a commitment too

    • Execution: Define everything that needs to happen

  • What are some practical ways to keep all of your team on the same page as it gets bigger?

    • Daily all team meeting where you share wins from yesterday

  • What are some practical tips for onboarding new hires? (what's the right and wrong way?)

    • Onboarding is like bootcamp (immerse them quickly to see if they have what it takes)

  • How do you do training?

    • Have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)

    • Tell me, show me, let me, coach me

  • How can you make letting someone go less painful?

    • You have to correct people in the moment when something goes wrong

    • Move quickly into giving warnings and performance improvement plan

Book Overview: TeamWork: How to Build a High-Performance Team

  1. Phase 1: Alignment (mission, vision, core values, interview process)

  2. Phase 2: Development (read books either your team will help you grow, or you'll have to outsource)

  3. Phase 3: Transition (upward in the organization, or transition out)

Interview Recap / Takeaways

  • Ask: What are your 5-year professional goals?

  • Have potential hires take a DISC Assessment or Myers Briggs

  • When you're pitching a team, first you say "Imagine a world" to set the future vision

  • When your team grows, do a daily all team meeting sharing wins to keep people on the same page

  • Onboarding is like bootcamp (immerse them quickly to see if they have what it takes)

  • When training, use the Tell me, show me, let me, coach me method.

  • You have to correct people in the moment when something goes wrong so that it doesn't become too emotional

  • Consider making it so that everyone on the team can bring in a lead and get a commission

  • 10-20% incentive target

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