Shopify CEO's Trust Battery Concept

👋 Firstly, a huge welcome to the new Elite Team Tactics members!

We grew by 88% over the last 7 days so a personal thank you from me to all of you who shared the newsletter with friends and colleagues.

✍️ Coming up in today’s edition:

1. One quick win: How to build your Trust Battery from Shopify CEO

2. One proven system: Inside Formula One’s experimentation system

3. One million-dollar question: Turn your leadership statements into questions

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1. THE TRUST BATTERY USED BY SHOPIFY’S CEO TOBI LÜKTE

The "trust battery" concept was introduced by Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke as a way to emphasise the importance of trust within an organisation.

He used this concept to describe how trust between employees and the company, as well as between colleagues, is built and maintained.

Lütke wanted to create a culture where trust is seen as a crucial element of successful working relationships. By using the metaphor of a battery, it helps your team visualise the level of trust and understand that it needs to be actively charged and maintained.

When a new colleague joins your team, the trust battery between you, them and their peers starts at 50%. This initial trust level is not static; it can increase or decrease based on actions and interactions over time.

Positive interactions, such as delivering on promises, good judgement, competence and supporting team members, charge the trust battery.

Conversely, failing to meet expectations or letting colleagues down will drain it.

Think about the trust you have with your team as a gradient that requires ongoing effort to build and maintain.

This tactic also makes it easier to discuss and address without becoming overly personal​.

The higher the Trust Battery you accumulate with your team, the stronger your relationships will become and the more opportunities you and your team will receive 🔋

2. INSTILLING A FORMULA ONE APPROACH TO TEAM PERFORMANCE

After watching the Netflix documentary on Formula One - Drive To Survive - you get a taste of what it’s like to work in some of the highest-performing teams in the world. I’d highly recommend watching it!

Outside of the high-octane excitement, there was one core element that struck me.

Each team’s obsession with data and incremental improvements.

Every single week, Formula One teams make approximately 1,000 changes to improve their car’s performance on race day.

The car is never in the same configuration. They even make adjustments during the race.

Imagine replicating this same philosophy with your team.

If they improved by 1% every day for one whole year, they’d end up performing 37 times better. 

But how do you make this a reality?

Experimentation.

The best way to influence your team to experiment is to craft a no-blame culture. Instead of focusing on who is responsible, a no-blame culture allows your team to learn from each failure.

To test how changing certain inputs affects the outcome, your processes also need to be documented.

Follow this 3-step formula:

1. Schedule time in your diary each month to create a system

2. Build a system/Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that focuses on repeatable actions and tools (click here for a Miro SOP template)

3. Record how-to training for each SOP so that you can get new hires up to speed without having to personally train people every time

I’ve started “System Saturdays” so that there is time scheduled outside of when I’m working “in” the business to work “on” the business and turn 1x repeatable task into a documented how-to that I’ll eventually be able to outsource/upskill a new hire with quickly e.g. sourcing high-value links for the “My Favourite Finds” section below.

This shift in focus to data removes the emotional, gut feelings that can cause team friction and aligns Formula One teams on the actionable experiments that could make the difference between winning and losing the race.

Adopt this system and you’ll be standing on the podium spraying Champagne with your team in no time 🍾

3. TURN YOUR STATEMENTS INTO QUESTIONS

We have all been in situations where deadlines are impending and our leadership communication turns more instructional.

This often gets the job done but the long-term impact on team morale and learning can take a hit.

Try this instead…

Turn your statements into questions:

❌ “This project plan needs to get delivered to the client by COP.”

✅ “How can we get this project plan delivered to the client before 5pm today?”

You see how the question elicits an active response and makes people think.

Research shows this can influence someone’s behaviour for up to 6 months rather than only for the immediate task.

Contrary to popular open-ended question techniques, they actually work best when the answer is yes/no as it doesn’t allow for excuses.

Final tip: start the question with “will” rather than “would” or “can” as that implies ownership and will get the behaviours to stick longer.

If you want more, check out this podcast from Rachel Hart on how questions work in your brand 🎙️

MY FAVOURITE FINDS 🔗

For your performance:

• 6 tactics from people who crush impossible-seeming goals (Link)

• Roger Federer’s mindset tactics for overcoming self-doubt (Link)

For your team:

• Great podcast on how Booking.com sustains a culture of innovation (Link)

• Mistakes that can affect company culture and how to solve them (Link)

For your health:

• Try out “Floor time”- currently trending on TikTok as a tactic to combat overwhelm - (Link)

• Rich Roll’s inspirational & tactical advice on becoming an ultra-endurance athlete in his 40s (Link)

ICYMI 📧

Here are some of the most read previous editions of the newsletter 👇

• Cristiano Ronaldo’s communication method that inspired Portugal to win the Euros in 2016 (Link)

• A blueprint from the Navy SEALs on how to run a high-performing debrief (Link)

• ESPN’s recruitment framework to hire the best talent (Link)

• The 2-minute rule for effective team meetings from billionaire Ray Dalio (Link)

• How Toyota uses the Japanese Kaizen philosophy to produce 1m new ideas per year across their global teams (Link)

• Google Ventures’ anxiety parties that reduce anxiety and increase team connectedness (Link)

And if we have never met personally, I hope we can change that in the near future but until then, here is a little backstory on me 👋