A Team that is Built to Last
One of my favorite aspects of working at FlexPoint is our unique approach to welcoming team members, finding ways for everyone to contribute, and encouraging personal and professional growth.
Here are some of my favorite lessons learned from my time at FlexPoint, starting with joining as a new team member last summer, finding a sense of belonging, and enjoying the collective growth of my team, company, and personal perspective:
Welcoming New Team Members
Share authentic experiences to build a tight-knit team
Employ personal user guides to establish an effective team working style
Fostering a Culture of Belonging
Prioritize including everyone to promote belonging and encourage contribution
Help everyone find a way to contribute to support ownership
Recognize small wins to reassure value and appreciation
Enabling Growth
Encourage people to be human and take care of themselves to maximize growth
Offer enhancing “stretch roles” alongside support to enable rapid development
I hope, by sharing my experience with each of these, you’ll be able to take some of these lessons and apply them to your team.
Welcoming New Team Members
I distinctly remember proudly raising my hand to answer a professor’s question on my first day of college. I’d thought of the most brilliant response to their question and was certainly going to impress the room. The professor chose another student’s hand and motioned that they were getting to me next. The other student made the point I was going to say but phrased it much more eloquently and with a couple of additional insights I didn’t have. I slowly lowered my hand and was grateful the other student was picked before me as I realized I wasn’t the smartest person in the room.
While it stung at the moment, I have since grown to appreciate being surrounded by people I can learn from. I believe I am who I surround myself with, and I feel immensely grateful to be on a team of exceptional people I admire at FlexPoint.
Besides wishing I was the smartest in the room, I often want to walk away with a new best friend after first meeting someone or want to be an expert with the best solution to a client’s problem on day one. However, several humbling experiences have taught me that developing excellence and trust requires time, experience, and patience.
Just when I thought I’d learned this lesson, I found myself slightly disappointed when I didn’t have all the answers or a bunch of inside jokes with the team on my first day at FlexPoint. However, the team is helping me get there by investing in authentic shared experiences.
My favorite memory so far is from our team offsite in October, where our founder and his wife hosted us for dinner, and we all shared why we took this leap and got to know each other more personally. Another highlight was organizing our first service event at Feed My People in Austin – check out our selfie! The team’s effort to get to know me and support my aspirations has helped me feel a sense of camaraderie and a desire to give back.
User Guides
Much of our work is project-based and is enhanced by a tight-knit project team. One of my favorite parts of starting a new project is the opportunity to participate in the reflective exercise of creating and sharing a personal user guide with team members. Our ten-prompt template facilitates an individual reflective activity and a proactive discussion that helps our team support each other in various roles.
FlexPoint’s user guide prompts
I learn the most about myself from reflecting on what I’m still working on and my top goals for the next six months. And I learn the most about how I can support my colleagues from their tips and tricks and how they prefer to receive feedback. Sharing about myself has helped me feel understood and helped the team quickly learn how to work well together.
Facilitating an intentional discussion with the team at the start of each project is a great opportunity to get to know each other and establish effective working norms. Additionally, I’ve found it inspiring to learn about different working styles and how I can support my team members’ goals and aspirations. As we learn and achieve with each project, it’s exciting to see our goals and opportunities for improvement evolve.
Fostering a Culture of Belonging
At FlexPoint, we want to promote a sense of belonging with everyone we meet, especially with our clients and team members. We strive to do this by giving people from diverse backgrounds a seat at the table and focusing on including their voices in the conversation. As a young professional with a couple of underrepresented identities, this intentional effort has meant a lot and helped me to feel included and empowered to contribute.
Contribution is one of my driving values and develops a strong sense of ownership in my work and the broader company. As FlexPoint continues to grow, I have felt motivated by seeing how my contributions have an impact that my colleagues and clients appreciate. Over the years, I have criticized my need for recognition, telling myself, “I must be so egotistical and insecure because I crave a shoutout or a ‘thank you’ for my work.” Or hesitant to recognize others because “they know I’m grateful for that small gesture that nobody acknowledged; I don’t want to be excessive.” I have learned that seeing recognition for my contribution is a helpful reassurance that I belong and add value. At FlexPoint, we make an intentional effort to cheer each other on with small wins so that everyone feels appreciated – the handwritten notes and quick mid-meeting messages have been my favorite thus far.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s framework provides helpful context for understanding how it’s essential to meet basic human needs before people can become their best selves. It’s easy to incorrectly assume our colleagues have secured their physiological, safety, and belonging needs and are ready to prioritize esteem and self-actualization.
At FlexPoint, we encourage each other to care for ourselves, so we can bring our best selves to work. When I lost a close loved one in January, the team quickly stepped up to offer support in the way I needed. Grief looks different for everyone, and my colleagues did a phenomenal job of seeking to understand what I needed and empathizing with me throughout this process. Encouraging each other to prioritize caring for ourselves and our families protects those underlying needs and allows us to be more authentic and thrive.
Enabling Growth
By properly welcoming new members to the team, offering time and space to build trust, and supporting a culture of belonging, we enable each other to bring our best selves to work and continue improving. Our founder, Michael, has always joked with me about seeking “battlefield promotions” or “stretch roles” that offer a unique opportunity for people to grow rapidly. While I have enjoyed the challenge of learning to swim in the deep end, I have especially appreciated the careful eye of the lifeguard on duty when I need support.
While this accelerated learning is challenging and has enabled me to grow personally and professionally, I appreciate that my interests are considered. Michael called me last week to discuss an exciting opportunity and wanted to confirm that I felt comfortable before signing me up. I believe the healthiest growth is when people want to change and feel supported in their learning. One of my favorite aspects of working at FlexPoint is that I feel empowered by the idea that I am choosing to put in the extra effort to deliver the highest quality and learn the most I can.
Each person brings something unique, and FlexPoint does a remarkable job of encouraging everyone to bring their best selves to help us collectively improve. This is possible by welcoming new members and giving them space to be themselves, so they feel supported in their journey. While it took longer to self-actualize than I initially wanted, the growth is far greater than I imagined.
Good things take time, and the groundwork that the FlexPoint team is laying is something special that is undoubtedly built to last.
