[00:00:00] Dan: Hello, and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore, how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee.

[00:00:14] Dan: You are indeed. You are indeed. And how, how is Ms. Pia Lee?

[00:00:19] Pia: So, you know, life has been up and down, but I've, I've learned a new word and one does love a new word, which I then had to look up. Cause I had no idea what it was. The word is precarity, which sounds rather similar to sort of, of its origin name being precarious, but is related specifically to the uncertainty around the economy and your own personal income. So it's kind of like how the external world affects you personally, right down to, to your own, I guess your own financial security. And I'm really sensing a lot of this around. Are you seeing this? I'm seeing precarity now. It's like the red car.

[00:01:05] Dan: No, absolutely. You mentioned this to me last week and uh, in, in preparation for meeting our guests today, wasn't it? And and I'm, I'd never heard the word, but I looked up and, you know, basic. Yes. As you say precariousness, but that, and as you say since then, That's all I see, that's all. It's explained everything, you know, I think we've got everywhere. You know, if you try to fly, your bag's gonna get lost if you if you try to get your car fixed, it's six weeks, if you, and so all that sort of, it just presses in on you. But more importantly, as you say, people in the world are feeling that financial precariousness and it's it. It's it. It's really it's worrying and has, has loads of knock-on effects.

[00:01:51] Pia: And I can see it, with the, the trade guys that we have in our house doing some renos. So I went off for a cheeky haircut on Friday and they get a phone call that there's been a brawl in our driveway between the painter and the builder. And I think it was because, it was something really, really critically important. Like one couldn't get their trailer into the driveway and wanted the other to move. And then they wouldnt. But it's really like, you gotta, you gotta look beyond it. There's something way beyond that pressure. That's layering up. 

[00:02:24] Dan: Yeah, I think that's right. I love it. You've got some trades doing a Reno. That's just, that's the most Australian thing I've heard in ages. I love it, but this does this. Doesn't set us up. Doesn't it for our guest today. Kathleen Curran, who has written a chapter of a book, which really dives into this topic and, and, and sheds some new light on potentially a new way of leading and working in teams in this environment.

[00:02:51] Pia: And I think what's exciting about this is that when you get all this disruption, something new is created. So I think this is gonna be, I think the work and the research that Kathleen. And her co-author has done is really, really interesting and aligns a lot with what we are seeing out there in the teams inside businesses today. So let's head over and meet her.

[00:03:17] Dan: Kathleen, a really warm welcome to We Not Me. Thank you so much for joining us. Lovely to have you on the show.

[00:03:27] Kathleen: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here with you.

[00:03:30] Dan: Excellent. Why don't you start with a little introduction. Who, who are you and why are you here without wishing to sound rude?

[00:03:36] Kathleen: Yeah. How much time do we have? It's a big question. Who are you? So I am a scholar practitioner, which means what I do informs what I study, what I study informs what I do. And I focus a lot on global leadership development. So I'm a coach, facilitator trainer. I like to say experience designer and an with purpose.

[00:04:02] Dan: Marvelous. Almost as if you'd thought about it, right, Kathy, we're gonna knock you off your perch now because we're gonna ask you one of these conversation starter questions. I'm just shuffling the pack authentically and I'm gonna put, pick one at random and here it is, here it is. Ooh. The living person I most admire is.

[00:04:22] Kathleen: I'm gonna cheat and say, it's, it's a group more than an individual person, if that's okay with you.

[00:04:28] Pia: No, it's perfect on here.

[00:04:30] Kathleen: Okay. Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative. This is a group that really focuses on just what it says very much in the, we mindset and all that we do me, we, all of us is designed to discuss if things are decaying or dying, what do we need to do to regenerate from the individual to the group, to the whole world aspect? So that I think is who I would pick, who I most admire.

[00:05:07] Pia: Well, that's pretty, pretty inspirational. So let, so we are here to talk about something very exciting. So as a scholar, you have published. A chapter in a book and in research project with fielding university and the title of your chapter is challenging how to lead during precarity. So I'm going to let you know, into a little secret here.

[00:05:33] I had to look up the words precarity, because I'd never come across it before. So just in case anyone listening to this cause I thought it sounds a little similar to something I know. You know, not giving away too much, but it was really insightful because it is a word I've never used, but it has a specific meaning. So should we start with the title first?

[00:05:53] Kathleen: Let me say that that is the title of the book and it's an edited book of chapters and my chapter actually mine and my co-author Dr. Randall Thompson is about the void. The void, the emergence of generative teams and generativity. So it's, it's not exactly about precarity, but it's that context. That's what it even inspired the whole book as it's called unexpected leadership. What what's going on, what this is unexpected, especially in this time of precarity, where it is all that the root implies it's precarious, it's dangerous. It's full of unknown. So, if you can add to that definition, please do. Cuz that's what I think of, uh, with that word.

[00:06:41] Pia: Well, when I looked it up, it had a, it, it had all of those things, but it also, this is what really interested me. It's the uncertainty about economic or personal income. So it's actually about your own, your own stability and, and ability to provide. And I thought that was really interesting because certainly in our work we are feeling the tension rise in different forms. So it was, it summed up a sort of sense that I'd had for some time into one new word, which was, which was great.

[00:07:19] Kathleen: And probably the way our chapter title connects to that is it's from uncertainty to transformation. So from this emergent precarity to what are we going to become? It's gonna be a continual process of becoming, where this void that was created at the beginning of COVID is what inspired this whole project as well is like, whoa, what happened?

[00:07:45] It's like, a chasm formed. We are expecting what, what, what do we do? And when you add the livelihood, the, the ability, the income, the economic questions, we're left thinking, wait, wait, wait, what's going on here? And will I be safe? Will I survive this and we're looking for someone who we thought was leading us to who had the answers, right? Generally a position of leadership, a president, a prime minister, a whatever kind of leader we thought held that responsibility. And suddenly this void came and whoa, where'd that person go or what, where are we here? We're we're hanging. 

[00:08:33] The, the interesting thing about void is looking at the etymology. Okay, so first, first studies for me was linguistics. So I've always loved words. So I always go to the etymology of words and that etymology of void etymology avoid as a noun is vacant, empty. But as a, as a verb, It has a sense of abdicating running away, basically. And so we think, yeah, that's kind of what we felt like. Someone is abdicated. So now who's gonna take over that's what inspired this, this whole book. And actually what we wrote about.

[00:09:15] Pia: So Kathleen, help us understand what you mean by the term void and what it means on an everyday sort of practical level. If we're working in a team or an organization.

[00:09:28] Kathleen: I think we can all relate to it actually quite viscerally. Whenever we think about the beginning of COVID, when the bottom dropped out of the normal way of working, of being together, going to work, how we do things, all of a sudden we can't do it. And there's this void of certainty. There's this void of normal procedures. And in fact, a void is filled, was filled with a lot of turbulence. Right? It, and again, I can speak from what was going on here, where this is a hoax. No, this is really serious. You should do this. You should protect yourself that way. You should. Oh now you, you cannot go in a grocery store. You can only buy things online and have them delivered or you go and pick them up. And when you take the bags home, you must wash them with Clorox bleach because these germs are everywhere and it's like, oh and there's chaos.

[00:10:23] And so that's one thing that fills void is a certain amount of chaos and turbulence because we don't know. So there's uncertainty and what, what it also comes down to is in this shifting and unfolding it's dynamically complex and that's important because it means that what usually is a cause and effect relationship. Like if I do X, I get Y. It no longer happens. The, the outcome of a cause is somewhere unknown. So cause and effect are far apart. And actually can't even see where the effect is. So we don't know.

[00:11:05] And the first reaction in many teams and organizations was shown to be hunker down. You could almost imagine, you know, the doors automatically locking the, the safe and everybody stay in this protective head down, keep safe mode. And it's only after a little while. Did people feel okay? I can lift my head up. It seems like the dust is settled a bit. But the other thing is it's generatively complex. So things are happening constantly. We start to put our head up and then something else comes along.

[00:11:43] So the generative part of it is that things are happening in this unpredictable unfamiliar way and unfolding so that socially complex is a third piece of it. Everybody sees it through a different lens. 

[00:12:00] Dan: I love the way you've sort of dissected it in a way that, that total, what it looks like chaos, actually, you can start to see those, those different elements of complexity in that, that we all we all live through. So what happens then? How do we move through this into something more positive?

[00:12:18] Kathleen: Well, this is what we observed. We looked around the world actually was quite qualitative research. We just looked around and saw what was going on and well, in a crisis, generally, a leader has the answers, right? The leader steps up and, you know, military is a great example of this. Because we know what to do. Okay. Create clarity out of chaos. So here's what we do and they practice and we have ways of working and there's a procedure. So you practice so much, you don't even have to think about what to do. You just do it. Whereas in this kind of crisis, it's spread everywhere. There's no way that a crisis leader can come in, fix the problem. Let's get them back onto the grid as fast as possible, it's now everywhere.

[00:13:13] So, an author wrote a book Disasterology said that generally in crisis, the first people, the first responders, if you will, are those right there where it happened But if you imagine these. Groups coming to help, right? Where it happened. Imagine a network of small groups who are coming together to do what needs to be done, They did not come because they had certain skills. They came because they cared. So you've had organizations in the UK actually, or just groups, neighborhood groups who would not only try to deliver food if they saw people needed that, but also give them a phone call or walk by and wave. So it was emotional support as well as practical support. 

[00:14:04] So they organically formed these groups to. Do what needed to be done, not based on skill, based on something else. We looked also at corporate context. And so I used Squadify to look at teams and, and thanks to Squadify. I got to use the data that showed 23 teams results from before COVID and during. To compare the results. And so here we see the same thing people coming together to do what has to be done. But the key piece is what compelled that, what drove it.

[00:14:47] Pia: So Kathleen, you've mentioned this term generative leadership and, and I think that's, that seems like a new term. And I think it would be really helpful to unpack that little bit what we mean by it and, and what that, what you see as its value may be in this uncertain precarious type of world that we're existing in.

[00:15:09] Kathleen: Again, with words you think of generate. Generations. There's some growth and it's open ended. So, research tells us that generativity, which means open ended discovery, creating new space, changing the way people think so that new options for making decisions or actions are there, and people see old things in new ways. So it's generating a new way of, of being, and thinking and doing. And they, the research says that generativity is really the best form of seeing and thinking and being when you're in a place of uncertainty.

[00:15:54] Cause this is not about problem solving, right? Problem solving is okay. What, what's the solution? Let's find it. Let's narrow it and come to the solution. Whereas generativity says let's open up the options. Maybe the old way is one of the options, but it's not the only one. So it's a whole idea. And a generative leader is one who can inspire this climate, where questions are asked and things are explored and knowing is not necessary.

[00:16:24] Dan: And Kathleen, is there a, a natural sort of conflict? Cause I think what I see, I think you mentioned this in. in situations of uncertainty and complexity and emergency that people very often do the opposite, close down, look for certainty, do this simple thing. Sometimes that's okay. And you, it could be effective, but that broadening of the, the widening of the lens, you know, to see more and ask more and create more space, it seems that we do the opposite. Is that what, what you've observed?

[00:16:55] Kathleen: I think generally working in leadership development, that's what I see is how could we quickly find the solution? How can we quickly narrow to the one thing, get it done and move on. And not even question if there could be another possibility and yet if we're in. Context of uncertainty of chaos, then how crazy it is it to use?

[00:17:23] What we used to do when things were supposedly clear. I mean, we talk about the VUCA world. COVID just made it like Uber VUCA. So you, you to, to just narrow it, this is what crisis leaders do. Find the problem. Let's solve it quick and get on with it because that's the way we win or that's the way we get success to get, get that community up and running.

[00:17:49] But if you don't know it's best, if you say, I don't know, which says, then what do we know? What more do we need to know? What do you think? We said already, there are multiple perspectives. There's social complexity. So let's use it. It's an asset. And in fact, that's one, one important finding is if we can find a way to convert access into an asset, we can solve the problems we are creating. And what I mean by that is that asset of being able to hear all those multiple perspectives, if we can convert access to hearing, to listening into an asset, right? Exponential.

[00:18:34] Pia: And my observation of that is that in order to do that, we have to shift the perspective that the leader needs to know all the answers. Cause sometimes that causes. We're almost like a sort of mild form of constipation in the team because everyone's waiting for the team leader to come up with it and no, and no nothing's happening. But actually it's the quality of questions that you're asking, coming from that that will, that will release the, the, the asset of the whole team I would've thought.

[00:19:04] And you talk, you got this lovely phrase about it's a new way of collective thriving. That's what generative leadership. Creates, which is something pretty inspirational. I love that word thriving, because there's a there's, there is an emotional context to that. So what, so what underpins generative leadership? What are these four? I think you talk about four principles. Tell us a little bit about that. 

[00:19:28] Kathleen: The four fuels. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which, and when I talk about them, you'll see, they're renewable energy also. So

[00:19:37] Pia: Yes. 

[00:19:38] Kathleen: and so when, when we, when I lead into this, I'm saying that we. When we use this generative form of leadership, then we discover we as an optimal word. We discover we don't need a leader, a one person leader. We've got this. So it's actually very empowering to use this fuel. So the fuel is first intent, love, care, and hope. Now that doesn't sound like the language of business, but it's critical because. 

[00:20:18] Uh, if I start with intent, intent is a word that we all know, but it's based on the principle of intentionality, which says it's the emotional side of imagining a beautiful, like you said, thriving future. So you get to the, the idea of intent as where are we going and why? Right. It's purpose. It's it's here. And now it's not just, it's a, it's a, an aspiration, maybe we'll reach, but there is a strong intent. I know where I'm going and why the team knows where and why. And each team member also. Is an individual contributing to the whole.

[00:21:09] The second is love. And love is, is an emotion. Intent is kind of intellect in a way, or it's something hard to touch, but love is an emotion .And Maturano says love is the only emotion that expands intelligence, which I love that quote. Because it's, if I love, I'm curious, I want to know more. I expand my thinking and so love means there's more unity on the team. 

[00:21:40] The next one is, is care, which is a disposition, it's kind of a stance you take. And it's really the accountability. So it's not just, we want to go there, but I care and I am accountable. We are all accountable. So it's a, it's a sense of making more conscious collective decisions. 

[00:22:00] And lastly is hope. And what's interesting about hope is we think of that is maybe you say it sounds like intent. We look at hope as kind of aspirational, but actually you say, this is what I want, this is what I want. I hope I, I set a goal. I believe we have the capabilities to reach it. And we have when we do, and we take the action to reach it. So it's an act of hope. It's not just, uh, an aspiration.

[00:22:29] And that's what we saw of the teams, whether they were organically formed or whether it was in Squadify, we found these four elements for the fuel to bring the groups together. And in fact, an interesting piece of that, of, for a generative team that leads itself, self managed is infrastructure. We found that without an infrastructure, all the good intentions, all the hope doesn't go anywhere. It's not that you need a structure of who's in charge or who's to do what, you need an infrastructure for the flow of communication of the work. And that infrastructure formed organically.

[00:23:16] You look at that group in the UK, who, who started in a, in a community, delivering food, delivering waves and caring. They organically spontaneously came together, but they very quickly formed a, a way of communicating and recognizing who needs what? So they actually started a process of having the people of all the houses in the community post in their window, what they needed, and the, the group just sort of walked by and saw what was needed and took care of it.

[00:23:52] Another example was here in the states when they finally had the. Vaccination, they was online and people had to go online and book their appointment where they could get this vaccination. And they started of course with the most vulnerable population, which is the elderly population who knows the least about the computer. So teens who just were, you know, inherently savvy noticed because of their own grandparents and, and so on. And they just came together. Oh, figured out where the places were, where the appointments were, sign them up and then did their own mobilization of getting others to join because they had such demand. So the infrastructure was organically created, but that's what enabled them to really stick together and serve.

[00:24:44] Dan: That's great. Thank you. And what did the data tell you? You, you you've used the Squadify data set. What, what did that tell you about these mostly corporate teams about any shifts that they'd made in this, uh, in this environment?

[00:24:57] Kathleen: Yeah, it was super interesting. It was really interesting. And we used the data in a rather qualitative way, right? It's not our original data, so we didn't design the questions we asked and so on. We were just looking at the data results and trying to make a story out of it. And the things that stood out to us, uh, were the top 10, what we looked at then what was, what were the top 10 changes in the importance the team members placed on the 37 items in Squadify, and what was the change in the top 10 changes in the perceptions of what's present on their teams. And looking at those, we found a shift in what was important and present before versus during COVID. And what was interesting if we look at it through the lens of the four fuels, we find first that the intent was definitely for the team to, to reach this common purpose, to reach. We, we don't have. Our regular structure, right?

[00:26:10] One of the teams that brought this to my mind first that I was familiar with were to previously co-located, but when COVID hit, the leader had to leave the country and go back to her own country. Therefore, the team had no leader at, on site that they usually would ask questions of and get directions from. So they had to step up and figure it out for themselves. Therefore, their intent was to keep serving the client, keep serving the customer, how to do it? That's where some of the other aspects came in.

[00:26:53] So for example if I look at the data here, I have top 10 changes and perceptions of importance. The first was coach each other to help. They weren't doing that previously. It was rated, uh, lower down in the list and the second perception of importance. So it really got, our attention was happy at work. That is not what you would expect during COVID. Even in the perceptions of what was present on their team, happy at work was still within the top 10. It was number six, but that was higher than it used to be as well. 

[00:27:31] Pia: That's interesting. I mean, that, that, that sort of flies in the face of a pandemic where you think everyone's gonna be all, uh, be falling apart and feeling upset, but that's, that's there's something really interesting about, about that collective sort of coalescing makes people feel happier, makes them feel that they're actually contributing to something.

[00:27:50] Is that, Is that, 

[00:27:51] what you saw? 

[00:27:52] Kathleen: I think that's really hitting the nail on the head because a lot of times I'm sure you've heard the same. There's a disconnect between what the the. Executive team's direction is, or strategy is. And then by the time it gets down to a lower level of implementer. It's like, what's the point of this? I don't see the purpose, but here they, they were now the leaders. The team leadership. They did not need someone to give them a strategy. They knew what they needed to do. So some of the other, uh, shifts that we saw were I'll go to the perceptions. What is present is a more straight talking without offense. That was number two shift in changes in what they saw as present. 

[00:28:40] Now, before in normal times, you know, people kind of like, well, I'm not gonna rock the boat here, or it's not so important, but here we, we don't have time. To tiptoe and, and we're in this together right? In a crisis or in a, in a time like this, we have to stick together. We have to really be a squad. So that was a high one. And disciplined execution. They couldn't mess around. Clear plan to achieve goals, effective processes to run the squad. Don't wait for somebody else to tell us how to do it. We got it. Even in re respect to that, there's effective processes for decision making give each other feedback to help and squad interest above the individual.

[00:29:26] Those were what they found on their team. That were the biggest changes from what they perceived to be present on their team previously, 

[00:29:36] Dan: So interesting. And there is a real theme there isn't there it's I suppose these are not typical teams in a way. Are they, these were people who are working consciously working on their teamwork, I guess, as a does. They're a special subset, aren't they? In a way?

[00:29:50] Kathleen: Well, you know, maybe, and maybe not. I don't know the answer, but I'm just hypothesizing that people didn't know this was coming. So were they working on it? I don't know. Maybe it already landed on the radar, but some of them probably not. It would depend. And that actually would be my next step in the research is like, let's go see what those very, these 23 teams are doing today. Have they regressed or have they like now deprioritized happy at work? You know what, when we ask the question, is it sustainable? You know, these fuels that I say are renewable energy, is that the case? 

[00:30:37] So if I, if I can just do one more thing is look at each of those four fuels and tie it to those responses. It's quite interesting to see it in context. So I mentioned intent, love, it looks like. The love was, was expanding the team's intelligence. They, they created their own ways of doing things and they also saw this capacity to see more than themselves. It isn't just what I'm doing. It really was a team team, collective wisdom.

[00:31:14] And so things like placing squad interest above the individual was one of the elements that changed. And in light of risking new processes, like I mentioned, straight talking without offence, you can only do that. If you have that good relationship that love provides. 

[00:31:36] In care while it's we defined it as an action, a disposition and an ethical responsibility, it also is like the difference between I care or I worry, they weren't worrying, they were caring. And you think about what you say to your kids, even you say, I care about you. Not, I worry about you. If, if you think about what those two phrases mean, if I'm worrying about you, I'm scared. I'm, I'm coming from a place of fear. But if I care about you, it's about you and I want something more for you.

[00:32:16] So this what they showed, give each other feedback to help effective processes as needed for decision making and running the team as a whole showed I'm caring about us. I'm caring about the, we it's we, not me, right? 

[00:32:33] And then last hope. Hope meant. Clear measures of success, prioritize clear plans to practice, to achieve their goals. So they weren't just hoping it will go away. And when CO's done, we'll get back to normal. They were really thinking, how are we gonna put this hope into practice? As I mentioned, hope has an agency to it.

[00:32:58] So it was, it was really fascinating to see that actually we mostly, and if you look at all articles, I don't know about you, but I get McKinsey articles almost daily. That it's all about. What should you do? What can you do to do this better? What can you do on your team? What can the leader do? It's all this do. And actually intent, love, care, and hope are not doing, they're being. So a generative, an emergent came from this void generative team leadership is always in change as well, always in becoming.

[00:33:39] Pia: That's so interesting because My observation of, of organizations, particularly over the last sort of 25 years of being of, of working with them is that doing is speeding up. We've got, we've got hamsters on the mouse wheel and, and we just can't keep up. And then something happened that was so much bigger than all of us. And it happened to all of us that then we sort of dug into, I think our resources that we didn't even know that was there. And that's where I think where the sort of kernels of this generative leadership come from. What we're in danger of doing is getting back on the hamster wheel.

[00:34:16] And, and so do you see that this void, I gotta sit transitions and we're still in it and possibly going to be in it for many more years to come. And we could really, really reshape the way that we do things?

[00:34:30] Kathleen: Totally. I, I think that was one of our questions. Is this gonna last, and I, I remember even asking this question, I mean, what we're proposing here that we're now all. More vulnerable and sharing it. And my goodness psychological safety has become extra important everywhere. It's become a normal part of the language. So is this going to stop once we are in order again, what we're used to? And so the question was, is this sustainable?

[00:35:05] And I distinctly remember early on in the, in the pandemic when. Oh, you know, they keep trying to predict, oh, it'll be over by the summer or some nonsense. Right. And I was in one session and, and was asked that about how do you feel about what the pandemic? And I remember saying I don't want it to end yet. I was probably the only person in the world saying that.

[00:35:33] Pia: Quietly. 

[00:35:34] Kathleen: But my, my reason for saying it is the changes that are being made when you see people really pausing to reflect and respond and reprioritize and regenerate, not just get it done, that takes time to really take root. And if we get back to normal, too fast, It won't last, it will be like the rubber band. It stretched a bit and then snaps right back. If we stretch long enough, it be, can become a new way.

[00:36:09] So we find some evidence of that. And I think that time that we've now had to find a new way of being and doing such as the hybrid methods and so on. If you ever read anything by Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia in strategy? She wrote a book about seeing around the corner. And, and she talks about how we got used to things pretty fast, made some major changes and now find, do we wanna go back? No, but the discernment is which things are now better. Face to face or which don't have to be anymore. So that was one clear outcome that we, we find of course, but I think it's, uh, a case of giving it the time to take root and then finding that it works, the changes that we have created that we have generated. And more importantly than that kind of concrete aspect, the process and the capacity. To continually regenerate and find new ways to be even more innovative that we're getting used to as well. And if we can get that process as the new normal, wonderful. 

[00:37:30] Pia: And I think that's what we see is from our Squadify data set is. Strong personal connections is ranked really low, but every time I talk to a team, it's number one on their agenda. And somehow we've gotta redefine it in our own minds. And if we redefine it in a way that feels comfortable, then I think we're probably gonna, we're going to feel more comfortable enacting it because everybody wants it, but they often think that organizations don't allow it. And it, it's not certainly not allowed into the corporate space. So I think that's something that we're gonna have to have to work on to shift.

[00:38:09] Kathleen: Yeah. And here's one thing I just learned today. I, if we talk tomorrow, I'd have even more to say because each day something new comes up, but the word informed, an informed intention. That's I think a bridge. Because if it's just intent, it's something sort of hard to touch. It's a bit ephemeral, but an informed intention means we can find the, the, the, conversation content that helps us clarify what we each mean, because conversations are what would enable. All of these elements, right? Everything on Squadify, everything we've been talking about is the conversation. It's the relationship. So informed intent would bridge with something that we could get our arms around, not leave it into something that's like, I don't know what you're talking about. 

[00:39:13] Dan: So Kathleen it's been amazing to hear the depth of your research and the, uh, a completely new take I'm sure for our listener about this last piece of history that we've gone through and we're still living through. If you think about a team leader today, what practical steps could they make in their being, or they're doing to, to move towards this generative style of leadership?

[00:39:35] Kathleen: I, I think I always go back to intent. And the best question anyone can ask when meeting any other person on their team or even a stranger or in a client meeting anytime is to ask, what kind of person do I wanna be in this relationship? And when you can answer that, when I say I'm an Explorer with purpose, it's because that's who I wanna be in this relationship. And that means, I don't know, I'm exploring. I don't have to come with an agenda. That's the first thing is to then say, what kind of person do I wanna be in this relationship? Which means you are already seeing a relationship. And you are seeing that person as an individual. Then. The communityship and I quote here, Henry Mintzberg, think everyone's familiar with Henry Mintzberg and the structure of organizations. Just recently has a very interesting blog and talks about communityship. Well, instead of leadership it's communityship, so that we are all in relation. And I think that's probably a core element of what our research showed, what generativity is and what anyone could do is consider they are in relationship. And that means I care about you. I see you. I hope we, the collective of we it's the wisdom in the group, the wisdom of the we that's, that's where I think a leader would start with the individual and the relationship.

[00:41:14] Dan: Kathleen, thank you so much for being on We Not Me today and, uh, sharing your own, your own wisdom with our collective listeners. So thank you so much has been absolutely fascinating.

[00:41:26] Kathleen: Thank you. It's been probably even more fun for me. I have to say 

[00:41:34] Dan: That piece about the void really jumped out for me, Pia. There was certainly a void of leadership. The void created during a pandemic, you know, those moments in emergencies, where, what do we do? No one's taking charge. And we re we reacted as a human race to that. I think by, by filling that void and trying, trying out different things.

[00:41:57] I must say, I don't think that's just about an emergency. I think there is a void of leadership now, and it's, it's, it's, it's exacerbated by that, uh, by the pandemic. But I think this is something we'll see very often now that there is a void and that, that needs filling with this new, new style of leadership.

[00:42:13] Pia: We, uh, we experienced it in Northern New South Wales with the flood. The actual agencies that were, uh, meant to do the rescuing didn't show up, didn't turn up. And so it was into the void, stepped people who volunteered, who coordinated, who used this generative style of team leadership to really come together, you know, to, to find a solution, to be innovative, to organize themselves in a specific way. So I've actually seen it, I've experienced it. I remember a phrase of a client I've worked with a long time saying no one else is coming. You know, it's kind of

[00:42:55] Dan: Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I, it it's it's we've got a similar thing here with the there's a little community of people who are hosting Ukrainians and you know, that, that, that leadership complete, that completely emerged from nowhere. People we didn't know, setting up Facebook groups. It must be said, you know, some of the styles and approaches there, aren't, you know, it's not to say it's all rosy, you know, we, we, we are not, we're not always all that well equipped, but something someone's gone into that space and tried to do something, which is, which is the key thing. And then we'll work it out from there.

[00:43:27] Pia: And You know, I think that some are Kathleen's findings and this terminology they're quite bold, you know, intent. Hope care, love, you know, the, they, weren't the sort of, they weren't the, the, the labels that you expected to see when you were in the forming storming norming of phase.

[00:43:48] And I think, I think, I think they're quite bold for, for, for a reason, they challenge us, challenge

[00:43:55] Dan: really do. And I must admit that when I first saw those, I thought, oh my, honestly, this is, you know, the it's it's crystals and Joss time. And you know, it really, but then I dug into it and I thought, no, this is the, these have a, they they're really hard in their own way. These things, these are hard to do. And but so important now. And I really see the importance of it and actually Just recently had a, had some, some really difficult times sort of some, you know, not combat, but some conflict we're trying to, with a small team, trying to really answer a really difficult question. It was very hard, actually it was these principles really that got us through that. It wasn't drilling down on the numbers again. It was, it was this, so I've be, uh, it was yeah, I think they are deliberately, strongly put to challenge us to to raise the bar.

[00:44:47] Pia: And the teams are telling us through the Squadify data, the alarming thing that whilst they talk that these are the things like being happy at work and having their strong, personal connections they're rating them lower. So I'm wondering whether this new phase of generative team leadership will enable leaders of businesses and organization and HR to really legitimize something that's very human about the way that people connect to get stuff done. Because unless we, we do allow it, it's not gonna get they're, they're not gonna have the space to be able to do it. And instead we're gonna see burnout and all the issues that, that we are currently seeing.

[00:45:35] So I think it's, it's exciting. I'm hoping that there'll be some early adopters who are gonna be able to show us how this really can work and how it can make a substantial difference to performance. Ties in beautifully with what Matt was talking about last week.

[00:45:50] Dan: Yes, indeed. And I do find it fascinating. Still we, we need to keep investigating this. What is that between, you know, we crave human connection, but when you ask people about it in teams, they say through the data, mm it's not really that important. So I, I find this a fascinating haven't quite squared that circle yet. So, let's, let's keep, keep asking questions about it and see what happens.

[00:46:12] Well, we're going to put this interaction a little bit next week, Pia, because we're going into the. Into the emergency room into casualty, accent, emergency, whatever you call it with our, with our guest next week, Andy Boocock, who works in that world. And, uh, we'll see what he has to say about what he's saying about precarity in his universe, and also how these new style of leadership might come into play.

[00:46:36] But that is it. For this episode, you can find the show notes and resources. squadify.net, Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. Also, please give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. You can also contribute to the show by leaving us a voice note with a question or a comment. Just find the link in the show notes. We not me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:47:05] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.