Why You Can't Build a Great Team Overnight

On Monday, I've been invited by the National Craft Butchers Association to spend 10–15 minutes on their regular Zoom call talking about building a great team.

I'm genuinely honoured to have been asked.

As I started thinking about what I wanted to say, my mind went straight back to December 2019.

Up until the end of November, we had around 24 people working at Turnbull's. On 1st December, 20 new starters walked through the door. Five days later, our new food hall opened.

We'd almost doubled the size of our workforce overnight.

At the time, I thought we'd recruited a great team.

Looking back now, I realise how unrealistic that was.

Within two years, 19 of those 20 new starters had left. In fact, after four years, there was only one of them still with us. Six years on, that same person is still here.

It was a turbulent couple of years, and if I'm honest, I probably underestimated just how much disruption that level of turnover would create.

But it taught me one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned about leadership.

Building a great team takes time.

The team of 24 people we had before opening the food hall hadn't appeared overnight. It had taken years of recruiting, coaching, developing people and, yes, sometimes getting it wrong.

So who was I to think I could create another great team in five days?

The truth is, building a team is never finished. People move on. Circumstances change. New opportunities come along.

That's why retention matters just as much as recruitment.

The less time you spend replacing good people, the more time you can spend helping great people become even better.

And it's also why you need to know exactly what you're looking for.

At Turnbull's, we have five core values that every team member is measured against.

We didn't invent them in a meeting room. We looked at our three best employees and asked ourselves, "What do they all have in common?"

Five values kept appearing.

Those values now sit at the heart of everything we do. They make recruitment easier. They make coaching easier.

And when someone isn't the right fit, it's no longer a vague feeling. You can clearly see why.

If you've never taken the time to define the core values that make someone successful in your business, I'd encourage you to start there.

Because great teams aren't built by accident.

They're built one person, one decision and one shared value at a time.

If building a stronger team is something you're wrestling with, it's exactly the sort of conversation we have inside the Impact Retail Success Club. Butchers and farm shop owners sharing what's working, solving problems together and holding each other accountable.

If building a stronger, more committed team is one of your priorities, that's exactly the sort of conversation we have inside the Impact Retail Success Club. Every month, butchers and farm shop owners come together to share ideas, solve challenges and keep each other accountable. If you'd like to see whether it's right for you, book a chat with me - I'd love to tell you more.