Kyle Probert on How To Connect With Your Team To Achieve Your Business’ Purpose

Author: Jade Green
Published: Sun 28 Feb 2021
Episode Link: https://shows.acast.com/barrelsandbusiness/episodes/kyle-probert-on-how-to-connect-with-your-team-to-achieve-you

Training a team is all about communication, setting goals, and having an overarching purpose.

But how can you communicate correctly and make sure your team is aligned with what you want for your business?

Kye Probert is a service engineer who has transcended his skills as a technician and works as the leader of APT Hydraulics. The overall purpose of his business is to help hydraulics engineers be safer, more efficient, and fulfilled in their careers by providing the necessary training.

Sounds straightforward enough, right?

To achieve this, he has to make sure he is communicating properly with his team and their students. This includes making sure he understands how his students learn.

As he puts it, when you are trying to teach something and people don’t get it, it’s not their fault, it’s yours!

In this episode, Kyle talks about how preparation is even more important than the actual work you do every day. He lives by this, teaching others how to set everything up and practice on land before diving right into the sea.

We talk about the importance of visualization. From when you are surfing to when you’re doing business and you’re thinking about the next move you’re going to make.

Plus, talking about your vision with your team can make it more tangible. When you do this, the plan to achieve the set purpose turns into reality.

Kyle also emphasizes the importance of ensuring the vision and virtues of his company are clear for him and everyone working with him.

He has learned the hard way that without accountability, the virtues a business aspires to can get lost in the process.

We also talk about the importance of creating a workspace that’s fun without being unprofessional and promoting an environment that allows people to be vulnerable and express their creativity.

Learn more about how to communicate with your team and the tools you can use to share your vision: (link)

Key points

(00:00): Welcome to Barrels and Business!

(06:01): Cardboard surfing is an example of how you can rehearse what you want to practice in life before you are where you need to be to do it.

(11:20): Being a leader and painting the picture of what you want to achieve for the rest of the team.

(14:20): Understanding how the team better captures information and making sure you’re providing it in the way that’s best for them.

(22:44): How Kyle and his company, APT have been navigating the pandemic and the business had its best year yet in 2020!

(32:17): Who is the best team member to place in a management or leadership position?

(36:21): The importance of moving from the hierarchy model to a network model to remove hurdles that are obstacles to achieving the ultimate purpose.

(51:11): Making the workplace a positive environment that encourages motivation and better results.

(1:08:41): The mindset of just “fucking doing the job” without looking at the other needs of the business puts a ceiling on the growth of the company.

(1:10:49): Setting one hour a week to implement new ideas and tools for the business.

(1:20:38): Accountability is needed to stay true to the mission and vision of the company.

(01:41:46): Business plan and five-year obsession set for APT.

(01:48:46): The meaning of setting an overall purpose. This should be the north star of a company.

(01:59:40): Thinking about the larger impact your business will have on the world when setting the values and virtues your company will exist by.

Key takeaways & quotes

We can rehearse our skills before being at the place where we will be actually practicing them. You can train and rehearse for what you want to achieve wherever you are in your journey.
“It’s the reps you do in the land that makes the biggest difference in the water.”
Creating a network instead of a hierarchy can be the best way to successfully run a business.
“Vulnerability is one of the main pieces of creativity, if you can’t be vulnerable you can’t have creativity.”
Planning and implementing are not the same thing. It is necessary to set one hour a week to start executing new ideas and developing projects.
The vision and mission of the business need to be embedded into the culture and there has to be accountability and metrics related to this mission.
Scaling-down can be a great way to set a tangible picture for the team. This leads to the implementation of short-term and medium-term goals to achieve the larger result.
Contributing to the world, beyond focusing only on profits and the self, is a more certain way to achieve true happiness and fulfillment.

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