Leadership Minute: Building a Business that Builds People
Want to know how one company hit 30% annual growth — every year —for a decade?
Robert Glazer’s company, Acceleration Partners, did exactly that. They also earned Glassdoor’s “Best Places to Work” recognition twice. All because they built a culture where ambition and well-being weren’t at odds.
Their secret? They built their business by building their people first.
Instead of focusing only on skills training or performance reviews, they invested in helping their team members grow into the people they wanted to become. In his book “Elevate Your Team”, Robert Glazer calls this “Capacity Building” — a strategy for deep personal development across four key areas:
- Intellectual: skills, knowledge, and mindset
This isn’t just about skills training. It’s about building the muscle to adapt. Glazer notes that intellectual capacity is about being able to learn and grow in new environments, especially as roles evolve.
- Emotional: resilience, self-regulation, relationships
Emotional capacity allows people to show up under pressure and still function well. It’s what makes high-performing teams possible. Glazer emphasizes that psychological safety, conflict resolution training and leadership vulnerability were essential investments because trust, collaboration and team longevity depend on emotional strength.
- Physical: energy, health, stamina
Glazer argues that most companies ignore physical capacity, yet it underpins all the rest. Without energy, you can’t learn or connect meaningfully. His company introduced health challenges, encouraged walking meetings and even subsidized fitness tools because better physical health leads to improved execution, fewer sick days and stronger focus.
- Spiritual: knowing your value and purpose
When people are clear on what drives them, they can align their work with a deeper sense of meaning. Glazer emphasizes that this clarity reduces burnout and improves long-term commitment.
When companies invest in capacity building, they create the ultimate win-win.
- Employees become more grounded, resilient and adaptable
- Leaders can better serve their teams by helping them prepare for tomorrow’s roles
- The Organization gains more focused execution, healthier culture and more consistent results
Why does it matter?
The truth is: no amount of certifications or courses can fix apathy, disengagement or a misalignment of values.
Without a strong foundation (principles, values, clarity of purpose and healthy norms), even the highest performers eventually stall. Or worse, burn out entirely.
Starting with Capacity Building in your organization:
Here’s how to start Capacity Building in your company:
- Understand the “Four Capacities” framework (Take the Quiz)
- Believe that investing in your employees’ personal and professional growth drives long-term organizational growth and success.
- Model it yourself. It starts with leadership not being afraid to be vulnerable about areas of struggle.
- Design a clear personal and professional development path that includes more than just skills.
- Reinforce regularly. Capacity doesn’t build itself — it needs to be part of how you coach, promote and measure success.
For an in-depth look at Glazer’s approach to Capacity Building, check out his book: “Elevate Your Team”.
Operations Minute: How to Protect Your Team’s Finite Energy & Focus
Our most valuable resource isn’t time. It’s our focus and attention.
If your team is constantly drowning in Slack pings, ad-hoc tasks and calendar Tetris, no productivity tool will save you.
The real problem is we’re burning through our finite cognitive energy on managing our relentless busy-work, leaving little left for the high-value strategic work we were hired for.
Too often, we don’t realize the true cost of the constant disruption throughout our peak working hours.
Even small distractions have a measurable cost. Switching between tasks can reduce our productivity by as much as 40% according to the American Psychological Association.
Multiply that by every notification, check-in, and context switch… and the math gets ugly fast. Hours, days, weeks, and sometimes years are lost with little real value created.
As Project Leads, we have more influence than we think. You’re not just a task tracker – you’re a focus defender.
Here are 6 ways we help the organizations we work with reclaim their energy, build momentum, and hit more of their deadlines without the chaos, confusion or burnout:
- Start the week with crystal clear priorities, not noise.
Use a single source of truth (like Asana or Monday) to align the team around 3–5 clear priorities.
If something new comes in midweek, triage it against what’s already in motion. Instead of adding more during the same week, de-prioritize one of your top 3-5 if something else is added.
The key here: limit the work in progress to reduce switching.
- Design a comms rhythm and stick to it.
Don’t leave communication to chance. Create structure: daily async updates, weekly check-ins, monthly reflections. Default to asynchronous unless urgency or nuance demands real-time collaboration and creative problem solving.
- Reduce tool sprawl.
Every new tool adds friction. Consolidate where you can. Use project management software that keeps conversations next to the work, not scattered across multiple tabs.
- Batch random requests to reduce interruptions.
Interruptions kill flow. Collect non-urgent asks in a shared doc or a dedicated section in your project management tool. Review them at set times so the team can stay in focus mode.
- Cancel “zombie meetings.”
Audit your team’s calendar every month. If a meeting doesn’t have a clear purpose, decision or urgent action item, kill it or reduce frequency. Your team will thank you.
- Model protected focus time.
If you reply to everything instantly, your team will feel pressure to do the same. Block off deep work time in your calendar and honor it. Then give your team permission to allocate their own dedicated focus time. That’s leadership.
Your Key Takeaway: Project managers are the front line of workplace design. When you protect energy and reduce noise, projects move faster, teams feel better and real progress gets made.
