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Building A Team Culture That Drives Success, with Mike Cruz, Episode #4
It’s becoming more and more obvious that the businesses that succeed these days are the ones that are able to assemble a great team and build a team culture that drives success. Mike Cruz had the opportunity to serve as part of the leadership team of Trunk Club as it was going through the iterations that have made it such a successful company. In this conversation, he talks about his personal journey and how it led him to the place where the well-being of the people on the team and the chemistry within the company were what gave him the greatest sense of fulfillment. It’s a great case-study in building team culture and you’ll learn a ton by listening.
Building a team culture starts with knowing who you are, as a leader and as a company.One of the things that becomes evident as you listen to Mike Cruz’ story is that the more clearly he knew his personal identity as he worked his way through his own career journey, the more clearly he was able to discern what a healthy team and company culture would look like under his leadership. He says that in his case, his personal identity as a leader and the company/team identity go hand in hand. Mike shares many lessons-learned in this conversation with Tom, so be sure you make some time to listen.
The path of every startup is filled with false starts and pivots. It’s the nature of the beast.As Trunk Club was experiencing the growing pains inherent with being a startup there were many false starts and pivots, in mission and in production and fulfillment. It has to be that way because few startups begin with a clear sense of company identity and mission. Those are things that evolve over time as the team assembles, personalities and skills mesh, and purpose becomes more clear. Mike Cruz says the Trunk Club team took on 3 to 4 iterations in the process because of the changes involved in discovering what the team culture had to be in order for success to happen. He says it’s part of the process you can’t really avoid.
When you build a team culture, there’s a point where you stop talking about it and start living it.When the team at Trunk Club had gone through several iterations and the new group of team players were finally seeming like the right fit, Mike Cruz had already spent a lot of personal time working through the essentials of the team culture. He'd talked about it with team members a lot. But he says there came a time when he had to stop talking about it and start living it. That’s when everything changed. Find out how the Trunk Club team made that transition and the amazing results that took place because of it, on this episode of The Critical Shift.
For better or worse, every team is a reflection of those who assemble it.It’s almost impossible to think of Microsoft without Bill Gates coming to mind. The same is true for Apple and its co-founder, Steve Jobs. The reason for that is a point Mike Cruz makes in this conversation - for better or worse, every team or business is a reflection of those who create it. It’s infused with the personality, perspective, and values of the leader. It can’t be helped - so it should be celebrated and championed because it’s the natural progression toward success that the team is on. Find out more about the process of building a team culture that fuels success, on this episode.
Outline of This Episode- [1:50] Growing up in Guam, college in the U.S. and starting a career outside his passions.
- [9:28] Learning that his skillset was around helping motivate and inspire engineers.
- [12:01] Where Mike learned his bent toward self-reflection and improvement.
- [18:21] Cleaning the slate to start all over at Trunk Club.
- [25:13] Drawing from his background and childhood to find himself and invest in his work.
- [28:04] Humility as a key to success in any industry.
- [30:24] The importance of positioning yourself for success in spite of circumstances.
- Trunk Club
- Swipe Sense
- Discovery
- Simon SInek
- https://launchpadlab.com/
- On Instagram
- On Twitter
- On Facebook
- On LinkedIn
View all episodes
By Tom Cullen of LaunchPad LabIt’s becoming more and more obvious that the businesses that succeed these days are the ones that are able to assemble a great team and build a team culture that drives success. Mike Cruz had the opportunity to serve as part of the leadership team of Trunk Club as it was going through the iterations that have made it such a successful company. In this conversation, he talks about his personal journey and how it led him to the place where the well-being of the people on the team and the chemistry within the company were what gave him the greatest sense of fulfillment. It’s a great case-study in building team culture and you’ll learn a ton by listening.
Building a team culture starts with knowing who you are, as a leader and as a company.One of the things that becomes evident as you listen to Mike Cruz’ story is that the more clearly he knew his personal identity as he worked his way through his own career journey, the more clearly he was able to discern what a healthy team and company culture would look like under his leadership. He says that in his case, his personal identity as a leader and the company/team identity go hand in hand. Mike shares many lessons-learned in this conversation with Tom, so be sure you make some time to listen.
The path of every startup is filled with false starts and pivots. It’s the nature of the beast.As Trunk Club was experiencing the growing pains inherent with being a startup there were many false starts and pivots, in mission and in production and fulfillment. It has to be that way because few startups begin with a clear sense of company identity and mission. Those are things that evolve over time as the team assembles, personalities and skills mesh, and purpose becomes more clear. Mike Cruz says the Trunk Club team took on 3 to 4 iterations in the process because of the changes involved in discovering what the team culture had to be in order for success to happen. He says it’s part of the process you can’t really avoid.
When you build a team culture, there’s a point where you stop talking about it and start living it.When the team at Trunk Club had gone through several iterations and the new group of team players were finally seeming like the right fit, Mike Cruz had already spent a lot of personal time working through the essentials of the team culture. He'd talked about it with team members a lot. But he says there came a time when he had to stop talking about it and start living it. That’s when everything changed. Find out how the Trunk Club team made that transition and the amazing results that took place because of it, on this episode of The Critical Shift.
For better or worse, every team is a reflection of those who assemble it.It’s almost impossible to think of Microsoft without Bill Gates coming to mind. The same is true for Apple and its co-founder, Steve Jobs. The reason for that is a point Mike Cruz makes in this conversation - for better or worse, every team or business is a reflection of those who create it. It’s infused with the personality, perspective, and values of the leader. It can’t be helped - so it should be celebrated and championed because it’s the natural progression toward success that the team is on. Find out more about the process of building a team culture that fuels success, on this episode.
Outline of This Episode- [1:50] Growing up in Guam, college in the U.S. and starting a career outside his passions.
- [9:28] Learning that his skillset was around helping motivate and inspire engineers.
- [12:01] Where Mike learned his bent toward self-reflection and improvement.
- [18:21] Cleaning the slate to start all over at Trunk Club.
- [25:13] Drawing from his background and childhood to find himself and invest in his work.
- [28:04] Humility as a key to success in any industry.
- [30:24] The importance of positioning yourself for success in spite of circumstances.
- Trunk Club
- Swipe Sense
- Discovery
- Simon SInek
- https://launchpadlab.com/
- On Instagram
- On Twitter
- On Facebook
- On LinkedIn