If you’ve been following my content for a while, you might’ve noticed that I call myself the “Team Whisperer.” But what exactly is a “Team Whisperer”…and what can they do for you?
Having someone on board with a Team Whisperer mindset can add so much value to your team, and they can begin repairing communication breakdowns you might not even know you have. But what exactly is a Team Whisperer?
Listen on Apple | Listen on Google | Listen on Spotify
What is a Team Whisperer?
To put it simply, a Team Whisperer acts as a translator between the business owner or team leader and their team members.
Oftentimes when something isn’t getting done the way that we want, when work’s slowing down, or when we feel like we’re just not connecting with our teams, it comes down to communication breakdowns.
Team members don’t always hear what we’re trying to convey. And when we have chronic communication breakdowns, it can quickly throw several wrenches into several areas of our business.
When you’re suffering from communication breakdowns, but you don’t know where the cracks are forming, having an objective “third party” of sorts there can be incredibly helpful.
Your Team Whisperer can step in and tell you that they understand where you’re coming from…but they also can tell you the difference between what you’re saying and what your team members are hearing.
That’s the kind of work I do. As the Team Whisperer, I have a deep understanding of the context that the business owner or the executive is operating from. I’ve had many, many roles in the corporate world working as chief of staff and working hand-in-hand with executive leadership to understand organizational change and strategies and prioritization at that top level.
However, I’ve also had deep experience in the trenches with teams, planning how work’s going to get done, and understanding what’s getting people stuck. So because I’ve had experience with both, I’m able to bridge the communication breakdowns between them and act as a sort of translator between the leader and the team.
Here are three communication breakdowns that might suggest you need the help of a Team Whisperer…
You Need a Filter
One of the first signs that you’re suffering from communication breakdowns: if you find that everyone is coming to you with problems needing to be solved—even people only one or two levels below you in the hierarchy—you might need a Team Whisperer.
When you’re running a business, becoming a key problem solver for everyone can leave you stuck in the weeds, which is not the best place to be. You really need to keep a lot of your bandwidth open to work on growing the business, reaching out to clients, and doing whatever it is that you need to do to scale.
In this case, having a Team Whisperer around can be really, really helpful. They are able to act as the buffer between you and the problems your team is having.
Now, some problems do need our attention. But by having a Team Whisperer, we can rest assured that they will be able to filter through the problems being brought to their attention and pull out only the ones that actually need a solve from us.
This is most common with teams that don’t quite have people in manager roles yet. That’s usually where I find myself coming in and sitting down with folks who are running projects and feeling stuck, but don’t have anywhere else to go besides the top.
As the Team Whisperer, I can figure out how to move forward, and then we only have to come back to that team leader or business owner when your approval or involvement is truly necessary.
Hiring a Team Whisperer is a great way to get space from being stuck in the weeds and the details of your team’s daily stuff.
Reestablishing Authority
On occasion—particularly with smaller businesses, or when managers are put in charge of former friends or even family members—the interactions between you and your team members start blurring the lines between professional and friendly.
When you feel that your team members are your friends—and they count you as a friend—it becomes really hard to deliver feedback effectively. You’ll want to soften it so they don’t get angry, and even if they receive it well, they might just decide to continue doing things the way they like to do them.
If this is going on with your team, you’re not alone. This is something I hear about a lot. And as a Team Whisperer, I can start to become the bridge that reestablishes separation between you and your team.
Separation might not sound like the solution to communication breakdowns, but sometimes it’s needed.
As the Team Whisperer, I can be the one who comes in and says, “Hey, we’re going to tackle this workflow this way instead,” and they’ll be less comfortable with continuing to do things the same way.
I can also create some space between you and your team so that you can reestablish that authority and recenter around the respect that you need to have as a business owner.
Now, I recently talked about earning the respect of your team, and that’s still true. So this doesn’t mean telling them, “You must respect me, don’t speak to me, go through this intermediary.”
Instead, it’s about creating some space for you and resetting communication norms as we’re figuring out how to really situate you as the leader who’s setting the direction of the company.
Overcommunicating
Another thing that can cause communication breakdowns between managers and teams is when we can’t strike the happy medium between under-communicating and over-communicating.
For example, I have a team that I work with that changed some of their pricing on one of their most popular services. They raised the pricing so that they could create a new model that actually better supports their clients.
The decision was absolutely thought through. The CEO did a ton of competitive research and analysis and found that price change would actually allow them to deliver a better service. But when she shared that with her team members, they flipped out.
They said things like, “How can you do this? We’re the ones that have to speak with the clients. I don’t agree,” etcetera. That was a really frustrating situation for her, but because she had me on hand as her Team Whisperer, here’s what we did to repair that communication breakdown:
I went back with her and said, “Okay, what’s the context that we can share that would be really helpful to set for the team? And beyond that, where do we not need to over-communicate?”
This is a really nuanced area of communication breakdowns. We don’t want to say too little…but sometimes, we say too much. Sometimes we get defensive or start apologizing for making a change, even though it was well-aligned with our business strategy, and that makes it even more difficult to get our team on board.
With this in mind, I love to sit with business owners and team leaders and figure out what the right level of detail in communication is for each of their different team members.
That means we’re not always giving one message to everyone. Instead, we’re being thoughtful about how we can communicate this to different people so that they can do their jobs, but also so the motivation behind the change lands for them and we avoid communication breakdowns.
In the case I mentioned above, communication breakdowns came about because the message really could have been more effective. We could have said, “Hey, we made this change. I know you are right here working with customers, so let’s talk about how you are going to feel confident explaining it to them.” But instead, it was, “Hey, we’re all focused on revenue growth. Here’s why we’re doing this, and here’s how it better serves our clients.”
You see how different that is? We could have addressed their concerns from the get-go if we’d focused on which details to share and which concerns to touch on.
Another way to prevent communication breakdowns like this is to figure out what your team members are not saying, and a Team Whisperer can get to the bottom of that.
Your team members may not be comfortable telling you the root of their worries; for example, maybe they’re afraid to be in a sales conversation. Maybe they don’t like talking about money. Maybe having to explain to previous clients why prices have gone up intimidates them.
In general, when a team member brings up a reason for disagreeing, it’s usually about something else. And if we can’t figure out what that “something else” is, communication breakdowns are likely to follow.
The Full Toolbox…in One Monthly Consult!
This is my favorite way to support business owners. With my Team Whisperer monthly consulting, you now have a Swiss army knife of team management, ops, coaching, and whatever else in your back pocket, and I can be deployed to help wherever you need it.
As a Team Whisperer, I do one-on-one coaching with team members. I do strategy sessions with business owners. I create SOPs and status reports. I tackle communication breakdowns.
Basically, I come in each month and say, “What is the exact thing this team needs at this moment?” And once we figure that out, we work on that right away!
So if you’re feeling like you could use some support in bridging the communication breakdowns between yourself and your team members, please reach out. These are often simple shifts that can create results right away for you!
WORK WITH LIA:
What if you could keep a management and team operations Swiss Army Knife in your pocket? Now you can with Team Whisperer Monthly Consulting: https://www.liagarvin.com/monthly-consulting
Want a checklist of things you can do THIS week to become a better manager (and make your job easier)? Check out my Thriving Team Checklist for a list of quick actions you can take right away with your team: https://www.liagarvin.com/checklist
Book a FREE Scale-up strategy call to for strategies to scale your team and get time back for yourself: calendly.com/liagarvin/scaleup-strategy?back=1&month=2023-08
CONNECT WITH LIA:
Website: https://www.liagarvin.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin/
