Most teams aren’t underperforming because people aren’t working hard. They’re underperforming because the same three seats are filled four times over — and four critical seats are empty.
In this episode, Karl breaks down the 7 key people every team needs to actually achieve success. Not job titles. Not org chart boxes. The specific roles and contributions that, when one is missing, quietly cap everything you’re trying to build. You’ll recognize the ones you have in abundance. You’ll probably wince at the ones you don’t.
Most leaders can name the gap the moment they hear it. The harder part is knowing what to do about it, which is why Karl also shares a free tool you can use to assess your own team, identify the pieces your organization is missing, and start filling those gaps with intention instead of instinct.
Because you can’t hire your way out of a problem you haven’t named. Listen in, run the tool on your own team, and see what shows up.
Good morning everybody. How are you? Karl Diffenderfer here. I am the owner and founder of Higher Impact and Higher Impact is a coaching company that coaches coaches and teaches them how to move to six digits in their career. We’re also a company that coaches business owners, and in that, we teach them how to uncover hidden profits inside their company. We teach them how to maximize the growth of their team, and also we teach them how to manage their time better. So, as a coach of coaches and a master coach, my goal here today is to teach you a little bit about a principle that I’ve been seeing inside businesses. This came out of a coaching session that I had with a client, and it just really stuck with me because I realized that there’s a perspective problem that business owners and coaches sometimes have.
Okay, so what is this? Well, it’s, we’re gonna talk about the seven key principles that every team needs in order to have success. And really, I’m gonna identify these, as people not as a success principle because what happens is there needs to be somebody inside of each team that has this focus.
So, the first person that you might want to have on your team is The Visionary. This is the person that’s focused on the future vision for the organization. This person is good at goal planning and seeking to look into the future, and they have this, overall picture of this is where we’re going as a company, as an organization. They really care about that deeply too. Now, just because you’re visionary though doesn’t mean that you’re going to be the next person. You guys are gonna laugh at this one. Do you remember the cartoon character that went underlay? Underlay. Yeah, that’s who I’m thinking of –Speedy Gonzales.
This is somebody who in the workplace wants to create urgency. They care about speed. They want to just get things done quickly, and this is not a bad trade to have inside of your organization because you all need people that move the needle forward. They get stuff done, right? And so I would challenge you. Do you have somebody on your team like that? If not, maybe you need somebody like that.
Okay. What’s our next person? Our next person is The People person. This is a person that really cares about relationships. They care about people getting along. They care about people moving into better spaces inside their relationship, and they really want to focus on the team and also on the customer. So, their relationship is paramount to them.
Okay, so we have The Visionary –Speedy Gonzales, The People person. Our next one is called The Craftsman. The Craftsman is the person that cares about precision and accuracy. How? How do I perform with better quality? How do I make sure that the customer is getting the quality they receive from this craftsman? That’s their paramount. That’s what’s so important to them.
Okay, so we have The Visionary –Speedy Gonzales, The People person, The Craftsman. Next, we have The Innovator. This is someone who cares about creating new, innovative solutions to problems and growth strategies. They care about future focused things. They care about ideas.
They really want to be the person that has the next best idea that everybody’s like, oh, wow, why didn’t I think of that? That’s what’s important to them.
Okay, number six is The Process person. This one is someone who cares about process improvement. They always wanna be figuring out how to do something faster and better and free up more time for the people around them. They care about evaluating every step and looking at the value of each of those steps.
Okay, now final number seven. You are ready for this drum roll. All right. All right. The last person is The Cap. Now, what’s The Cap? You might say it’s the client acquisition person. It’s the person that cares about the growth of the company through the customers that are brought in. Very often this person might be sales or marketing focused, and they just bring so much satisfaction to them. They really just care about that very, very deeply.
Okay, so I identify the seven different types of people that every business needs to have inside, and these are people that drive the success of the company, by the way, they might not all get along inside the company. They’re gonna create tension with each other. That’s okay. If you’re a good leader, you’re gonna balance that tension and help everybody to work together the way they should be. So, let’s review ’em one more time. We have the Visionary –Speedy Gonzales. We have the People person, we have the Craftsman, we have the Innovator, we have the Process person, and we have the Cap –the client acquisition person. So, as you look at your organization, what pieces are you missing? Which people are missing inside of your organization? Do you need to have somebody that’s specifically focused on that, or does your whole team need to focus on that? You’re gonna have to decide for yourself.
Now, one of the things I’d like to go over with you right now is just a tool that I use frequently inside of my coaching that helps people at the end of this call, if you’d like to receive the download version of this to be able to use in your coaching. If you’re a coach or if you’re a business owner, you want to use it with your team, please DM me, reach out to me, make a note in the comments. Happy for you to do that. Oh, by the way, we’d love to have people subscribe and watch us. We’re gonna be releasing more and more of these just teaching you some of the principles that come out of coaching. So, you’re gonna get real time information and strategies that you might not otherwise get. So, here we go, let’s take a moment to look at this tool that I use frequently.
Now, one of the things I wanna point out as I get ready to show this to you is that most people don’t work at an organization for one or two reasons. Very, very, very often has nothing to do with their skill sets. It has nothing to do with their capabilities of being able to do their job very often. It actually has to do with their character. Meaning how much integrity they have or it has something to do with their attitude, how much, how good their attitude is in the workplace. So, very often, when somebody goes, when you need somebody to leave your team, it’s for one of those two reasons and it has nothing to do with their actual skills. Okay? So here is the tool that I frequently use. And one of the things that’s very fun about this tool is that you don’t often think about this, but you actually wanna look at what’s going to cause success and what’s going to cause failure. So, in this, we look at the red flags that we should avoid with the person, and the things that could cause it to not go well, but then, we also look at the positive things too. We looked at how we could exceed expectations, then we looked at the top results, so I went from the top, left to bottom right there, but let’s go to the bottom left. What could they do quicker? What could they simplify? What could they do to save money? And what are the larger results that we want them to achieve? And then finally, in the top right-hand corner, we look at the key performance indicators, the things that we want them to keep their eyes on, the things that we want them to generate new ideas about. Then, also, the next one is what are they, what do we want them to be most responsive to? Going back to those seven people, what’s most important in that role that’s going to cause success for the company? And then finally, what are they the best at? What are they known for inside the company?
The b, the person to go to for whatever x. So, as you get ready to work on your team or as you are working on your team inside of your organization, use this tool to identify what success and failure look like for each of my people, and how can I be sure that I’m not disappointed at the end of the day. Because here, I’ll tell you something, if you’re a business owner, most often you actually are going to be disappointed with people, not because they failed you, but because you have failed them. Ouch! Wow, that’s harsh, isn’t it? That hurts. But it’s true. If you want to be the best leader, then you have to have clear expectations. You need to manage things well with your team. You need to call them up. You need to not be afraid to do that, and then you need to work hard with them to help them move into that new season to be the best version of themselves. As I stated recently, there’s a statistic out there that says that people are 80% likely to stay in their job if they have somebody that’s invested in their personal development of them. Somebody that’s coaching them. Are you coaching your team? If you’re a business coach and you’re coaching other business owners, are you challenging them to focus on their team? Whatever the case may be. I hope that you are. I hope today was a little bit of a challenge for you to think about things differently, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
As a reminder, subscribe to us. Follow us. We’re gonna have more of this coming out. If you want the tool, comment in the section below. Love to provide it to you. We’ll send it to you, DM, and look forward to talking to you very soon. Take care, everybody. Have a great day and enjoy this spring weather. We’ll talk to you soon.
In this episode, Karl has identified the 7 key people every team needs to have to achieve success. Karl also shares a free tool that can help you identify what pieces your organization is missing to help you fill the gaps.
“Are you a business owner or a coach? Are you struggling to move to six digits in your career? Higher Impact can help! Our coaching company teaches coaches and business owners how to maximize their team’s growth, manage time better, and uncover hidden profit inside their company. In this video, Karl Diffenderfer, our founder and master coach, shares the seven key people your team needs for success. Do you have a Visionary –Speedy Gonzales, a People person, a Craftsman, an Innovator, a Process person, and a Cap? Identify what pieces your organization is missing and let us help you fill in the gaps. Contact us today to receive a free download version of our coaching tool to help you identify the missing pieces in your team!” #HigherImpact #Coaching #BusinessOwners #TeamSuccess #MissingPieces
“Are you a business owner or coach struggling to grow your team and uncover hidden profits in your company? As a master coach, I’ve identified the 7 key people every team needs to achieve success. The Visionary –Speedy Gonzales, The People person, The Craftsman, The Innovator, The Process person, and The Cap (client acquisition person). Each person has a unique focus and role to play. Which ones are missing from your team? Download my free tool to help you identify the missing pieces and take your business to the next level!” #businesscoaching #teamgrowth #hiddenprofits #successprinciples #7keypeople
“Hey everyone, Karl Diffenderfer here, owner and founder of Higher Impact Coaching. Our goal is to help coaches and business owners reach six figures in their career, and we do that by teaching them how to uncover hidden profits, maximize team growth, and manage their time better. Today, I want to share a principle I’ve been seeing in businesses – the 7 key people you need on your team to have success. You need The Visionary –Speedy Gonzales, The People person, The Craftsman, The Innovator, The Process person, and The Cap. Each of these roles is critical to driving success in your company, and it’s up to you to decide which pieces are missing in your organization. Want to learn more? Check out the download version of my coaching tool for more insights.” #HigherImpactCoaching #BusinessSuccess #TeamBuilding