The best leaders always roll up their sleeves and muck in

How do you get the best out of your team? As an impatient leader, it’s tempting to demand that your people work faster or do more, pointing out things that have gone wrong and focusing on the negative. That approach might even get results in the short term. But over time, nitpicking erodes culture, loyalty and trust.

We are living in fascinating, challenging times. Founders and leaders need maximum productivity and efficiency from their people, and there are now so many technologies out there to help them.

This week, I had the privilege of spending shop floor days with two outstanding businesses, TWD and AGS One, who showed me how great leaders motivate and propel their teams forward, thriving at the intersection of productivity and technology.

Let me tell you a bit about these companies. AGS One is a provider of round-the-clock specialist cleaning and maintenance services. When General Manager David McMillan joined the business in 2018, the company had a single customer. Today, the business undertakes contracts on behalf of organisations nationwide, from housing associations to the NHS and local authorities.

TW Drainage is one of the UK’s leading specialist drainage and maintenance providers, delivering reactive and planned services across social housing, local authorities and commercial clients. With 80 employees, 50 technicians on the road and around 5,000 jobs completed every month, the business has grown organically over nearly two decades.

Different industries. Different services. Yet both share the same approach to managing change, technological transformation and staff engagement.

After spending time with both companies, I understood that great leadership comes from a combination of relentless customer focus, operational resilience, empathy and an inherent restlessness. The leaders at TW Drainage and AGS One never stand still, always asking, "How can we get better?"

This is very different from the inverse: "What are we doing wrong?"

Companies that focus on the negative tend to bring out the worst in their teams. These shop floor days reinforced the power of celebrating everything great about your service, team and technology while always looking for small improvements and incremental changes.

The leaders at these businesses roll up their sleeves and find solutions alongside their people.

This is the way I want to support my customers on shop floor days. I don’t want to point out manual processes and say, "You need to fix that." I'm not there to tell people what they're doing wrong. I listen, observe and understand how the business really operates. Only then can we identify opportunities to improve.

Working alongside the teams at TW Drainage and AGS One, we explored ways to remove friction, eliminate unnecessary administration and unlock greater productivity. Every workflow we observe helps us improve Build Concierge, making the platform stronger for every customer that follows.

Some of the improvements will deliver measurable ROI. Others will create benefits that can't easily be measured: less frustration; faster, more confident decision-making; a better customer experience; more time for people to focus on the work that really matters.

It’s hard to record these benefits as numbers on a spreadsheet, but they have a significant long-term impact on the success and resilience of any business.

A huge thank you to everyone at TW Drainage and AGS One for your openness, your willingness to challenge yourselves, and your commitment to continuous improvement. Spending time with businesses like yours reminds me why I love what I do.

I've never just wanted to sell software. I want to help my customers grow their businesses faster and achieve their goals more easily. Whatever you need, I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and help.