Alex Draper, founder of DX Learning, is a leadership expert dedicated to eradicating workplace toxicity. Through his CARE to Win playbook, he’s transformed 60,000+ leaders, fostering psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and people-centered leadership worldwide.

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Guest Resources

Care to Win – The 4 Leadership Habits to Build High-Performing Teams. Check out Alex’s book in Amazon.

Thinking Fast and Slow – Book by Daniel Kahneman.

Alex’s LinkedIn – Connect with Alex on LinkedIn.

3 Value Bombs

1) You are winning with culture if there is a lot of conversation, healthy conflict and continuous improvement day in and day out.

2) Sometime we forget that our customer satisfaction can’t be higher than our internal customers satisfaction. Employee engagement drives the customers engagement and that can get lost sometimes which is an important factor.

3) Autonomy is about empowering others and giving them your trust. The gift of autonomy is letting others speak.

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Show Notes

**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.

Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: CARE to Win: Building High-Performing People-First Culture

[1:26] – Alex shares something that he believes about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

IQ vs EQ. The hard part of being a business owner or entrepreneur is we tend to start our business with a technical mindset where we tend to be the brightest people in the room. But remember that it is not just about you and its not about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about building an environment where your team can thrive. That is IQ vs EQ, double down in your emotional imtelligence and build that thriving team and remember that they are not people, they are souls.

[2:25] – Alex talks about what does “CARE to Win” mean.

We all want to win at something and in order to win at what you are trying to win at, you can’t win without souls or people who are willing to do more than what is expected. People who give ideas that you didn’t have before and people who has your back.
CARE to Win means you are more likely to win if you care for your people because with reciprocity, they will care back.
Keep your best talent to help you win. That should be an imperative to all of us.

[3:34] – Alex talks about how CARE to Win transforms leadership.

It’s a mindset about putting people first because if you put people first, they will put you first and you will be able to achieve more. You just have to close the gap between what your team needs and what your team gets. The bigger the gap between of what your team needs from you and what your team gets from you, toxicity comes in the team. There will be more talking behind your back and not being focused on the job. But if you close the gap between someone gets and someone needs, you can actually raise the performance of the team.

[5:00] – Alex talks about what defines a high-performing, people-first culture.

It is when people speak up often and talking about what is important that reduces the assumptions and risks within the business.
You are winning with culture if there is a lot of conversation, healthy conflict and continuous improvement day in and day out.
When there is silence, there is an unhealthy culture.
What defines a high performing culture is a lot of speaking up and a lot of feedback about what is working so they can do more of that and do less of what is not working.
A great team who has your back will pay you with continuous improvement and tell you which one is working in your business.

[6:45] – Alex talks about AI technology and leadership today.

As you build your team you have to remember that one thing that differentiate your team and your culture are the people working in it. AI doesn’t care and it can’t replace what humans can do which is to collaborate and thinking about things from a different perspective, drive ideas and innovate. It can do things faster and quicker but it could not treat your customers like human beings can treat your customers.

You can’t run your business without customers and only human souls can touch your customers. If you treat your people right, they will treat your customers right.
Sometime we forget that our customer satisfaction can’t be higher than our internal customers satisfaction. Employee engagement drives the customers engagement and that can get lost sometimes which is an important factor.

[8:12] – A timeout to thank our sponsor.

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[11:16] – Alex talks about the biggest obstacles that leaders face in creating a people-first culture.

CARE to Win. CARE stands for Clarity, Autonomy, Relationship and Equity. These are the human skills to get the hard stuff done.
You need to win means if you treat the people with the right levels of clarity, autonomy, relationship and equity is felt that is where performance comes from and you can close the gap between what people get and what they need.
What gets in the way of entrepreneurs, leaders and owners in providing the right levels of clarity for a team to thrive is a brain. The brain is a survival machine designed to scan threats and to keep you alive. The brain process information shortcuts and the negative effect is called a bias.
An example, our brain unknowingly assumes that the people you are communicating don’t have the same understanding as you which is hard for an entrepreneur. The negative effect of the bias and the receiving end is it is not making any sense and that it doesn’t relate to them. What get in the way of providing CARE is that bias to do things on behalf of your people but the thing is they want to do it by themselves. Thinking Fast and Slow book by Daniel Kahneman
The more we become aware and the more cognizant we are of how our brain inhibits our ability to be an effective leader to build an amazing culture, the better your team is going to be.

[15:37] – Alex talks about how to make CARE a priority without adding to the noise.

Culture and leadership should not be a part time job if you believe that in order to win you need your people / souls to be performing their best in the right levels of CARE, it needs to be woven into your work.
There are two ways to do that at DX. If you have a pre-existing culture, they have three values and leadership behaviour that are expected and it is important to connect CARE to your pre-existing values and principles. CARE becomes the sticky glue between your why and your what.
The most important part is the flow of work. For example, Autonomy in meetings, make sure all of you have a voice. Clarity, make sure you don’t leave the meeting unless all are aligned and had a one on one with your team.
Making CARE a part of your work is how you build your trust with a high performing team. If you care for your team, they will care back and will also care for your customers. That is where performance comes from.

[17:56] – Alex shares some simple, high-impact actions leaders can take today to start their CARE journey.

Read the book Care to Win, check it out in Amazon.
Clarity is step 1. Without it nothing good happens with the team.
Simplicity scales, complexity fails. Make it simple.
Never end a meeting misaligned. Lack of clarity leads to duplication of work. Meetings are a way to be aligned and that is clarity.
Autonomy is about empowering others and giving them your trust. Don’t control them and let people speak more and you speak less. The gift of autonomy is letting others speak.
Relationships is its not about you but its about others. Make the conversation about them. Understanding the motives, strengths and values of your people so you can adapt to their needs and that is where performance comes from. His favourite relationship question of all time is “What is one thing that I don’t know about you that will improve our working relationships?”

[21:13] – Call to action.

Ego is a culture killer. Mitigate ego by asking this question “Would I follow me today?”. It will reduce that ego and allow you to be a leader.
Care to Win – The 4 Leadership Habits to Build High-Performing Teams. Check out Alex’s book in Amazon.
Thinking Fast and Slow – Book by Daniel Kahneman.
Alex’s LinkedIn – Connect with Alex on LinkedIn.

[22:15] – Thank you to our Sponsor!

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