[00:00:00] Dan: If you've ever been disappointed by a team conversation or you've struggled to make decisions together, this episode's for you. Our guest, Chris Ertel, has facilitated hundreds of strategic conversations with teams. He's a self-confessed team geek, and he's a thought leader in how teams work. 

[00:00:21] 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.

[00:00:28] Pia: And I am Pia Lee, That's a cracking word, disappointed. Are you a little disappointed? In the quality of the conversation or, or in the nature teamwork? 

[00:00:39] Dan: it's such a powerful word, isn't it? I'm not cross, I'm just disappointed. Yeah. The, the, the dagger to the heart, but yeah, we see this, don't we? We, this, this is a big topic.

[00:00:49] Pia: it is a big topic. Because I think that, we do feel that the. Conversations we sometimes have are just slightly suboptimal. A lot of reporting and a lot of tactical discussion. And you've got, I, you know, I often used to say that if you took all the salaries of the people around the table and then looked at the per hour spend that the company is making of them being in a meeting, you would be expecting some pretty sort of rocket ship stuff to be delivered. And often it's not. And people hold back. 

[00:01:22] Dan: Yeah, you're right. There's an app I think you can get where you can put those salaries in. And set a timer and it just shows the total spend in that meeting of by, of salaries, which would be quite, yeah, it would focus the mind. But you, you're right, I think there's, there's sort of a structural piece, isn't there? You see people talk, observing teams. I love doing this. Observing teams at work if we get a chance to do that. It's amazing how, um, it's, I think, you know, Andy Chevis has been on the show and he calls it a plastic bag conversation, doesn't he? It's like a, like a carrier bag being wafted around in an alleyway and you're suddenly, you're back where you started 10 minutes ago.

[00:01:56] But also this piece, and I know Chris will dive into this, which is what is unsaid? You know, people are behaving themselves on the surface, but what is, what, what's not being said? And, and it's leading to just a, just that surface level conversation, you just know that, uh, it needs to be better in some way. So I think this is a really important show, and I'm sure people will recognize the symptoms that Chris talks about. So, um, yeah, let's, uh, let's get stuff stuck in and go and hear from Chris now. 

[00:02:29] Pia: And a really warm welcome to Chris Ertel from Deloitte. Lovely to have you on the show, Chris.

[00:02:35] Chris: Howdy, Pio Dan, glad to be here.

[00:02:37] Pia: Fantastic. I think we have styled ourselves, the team geeks. We do like talking about teams and we've probably got a fair bit of experience between us. So it's gonna be a really rich conversation, I think today as we, as we look into, particularly around strategic conversations, why or why not they may be happening. But before that, you know the drill, Chris, you know, you couldn't get on this show unless you go into the the, the Hammond dungeon and get asked one of his questions from the Startup pack.

[00:03:10] Chris: Bring it on.

[00:03:10] Dan: I like to call it the man cave, Pia, but dungeon will do. Um, okay. Uh, cutting the pack. Okay. Ooh. Oh, this is a nice one. Um, one of my simple pleasures is what's a simple pleasure for you, Chris?

[00:03:23] Chris: You know, walking the dog do it almost every day. I've got a three mile loop. It takes me almost exactly an hour. And, uh, yeah, I almost always do the exact same route. I almost always am listening to a podcast, not to ingratiate, uh, too much, but it's often yours. Uh, there are a member of others I enjoy, but I'm always, always walking the dog with the podcast, clears my head, relaxing. It's all good.

[00:03:46] Pia: Do you meet the same people on that route than the same dogs?

[00:03:51] Chris: Not, not usually, although I should say, yeah, I live in Berkeley, California, so in my neighborhood, it's a fairly quiet part of Berkeley. I have a very, an unusually beautiful dog, a Welsh Springer Spani. You can look up pictures online and you'll see they're beautiful dogs. And so I don't usually see the same people, but I almost always end up talking to somebody on the way because everybody wants to engage with my dog. And so that's a good way to meet, meet the neighbors, yeah.

[00:04:15] Pia: Yeah, it is. It is. I find dogs are fantastic icebreakers that they sort of get past the slight awkwardness of the human bit and then you just start to, to meet the dogs. 

[00:04:24] Dan: Uh, yes. Yeah, it's lovely and yes, I, I'm looking at the pictures of the Wels Springer now, and um, yeah, there are a few around us. They're lovely animals and lively as well. Yeah. And, uh, so Chris, just briefly talk to, so what sort of podcast do you listen to? You listen for entertainment education. What, what are you, what's,

[00:04:41] Chris: mostly entertainment. Mostly education. Some entertainment. I'm a music junkie and a comedy junkie as well as a social science junkie. So those are my loops that I'm constantly going through. Music, comedy and social science. 

[00:04:54] Dan: Excellent. Excellent. All right. Well that's a fantastic setup.

[00:04:58] Pia: You like British comedy?

[00:04:59] Chris: absolutely, I mean, I'm, I mean, Python, right from the earliest days.

[00:05:03] Pia: Oh, right. Great. I was gonna say, you wouldn't be on this show if you weren't into a bit of British comedy.

[00:05:07] Dan: I, I I think, I believe, I think when we had dinner together, fortunately lucky for us in, in Berkeley, I think you might have quoted Python along the way a couple of times. So I, I've sort of had, you had your, I had your number. Um, so, take us back and bring us up to this day. Give us a quick, quick bio, Chris, and where did you pick up these, these loves and along the way, but your professional life as well?

[00:05:29] Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a strategic conversation designer. I highly recommend making up your own title, uh, 'cause then you get to get your own explanation. But that is really my, my specialty. I've been a, a strategy and innovation consultant for the last 27 years. That's after training as a social scientist. So my, my degrees are in, uh, cultural anthropology and demography from Berkeley. Um, but I really over the last couple decades or more, followed most closely cognitive science and social psychology. 

[00:05:59] So I, my, the question I obsess about is when, where, how and why do people take on new ideas? How does that work? How does that happen? Uh, both in strategy and innovation sort of contexts. And so I've done various forms of creative consulting over this period of time from design-based innovation to scenario planning, to more straightforward, uh, strategy consulting. Uh, but these days I hang my hat into Deloitte Greenhouse, which is a special forces unit of, of Deloitte. It's over a hundred folks and we, we do nothing but design and deliver, uh, strategic conversations, which we call breakthrough lab experiences. And those are really creative problem solving sessions that we do typically with 10 to 20, um,, people from a team, a client organization, uh, they put a, a big messy open-ended, adaptive challenge on the table, and we help them wrestle it to the ground.

[00:06:55] So that's, that's where my focus is, is, is designing and delivering strategic conversations, all kinds of contexts, any kind of business problem, organizational problem, any kind of industry. So it's really more of a process specialty that I focus on, not a content or, or industry focus 

[00:07:11] Pia: So that's probably a really good jumping point. So you are getting teams coming together with knotty problems and trying to solve them. So from your experience, what are you, what are you observing about teams from that perspective?

[00:07:26] Chris: Yeah. In the context of the strategic conversations though, the typically one day experiences there, there are a few patterns that we see as challenges from a teaming perspective. Um, you know, I would say the, the first and biggest challenge to having effective strategic conversations in group setting is, is people holding back. I think that's the number one challenge that we get. In the preparation for these sessions, often the host is kind of nervous. They think about all the various things that could go wrong or the in politic people, things people might say and so forth. But the reality is, in large organizations, people are hyper socialized to behave by and large. It's, I. Unusual that things run off the rails or people misbehave in, you know, any significant ways. 

[00:08:16] The bigger, much bigger problem is folks holding back what they really think and feel and believe for really impression management purposes, right? And so I'd say that's, that's the first big pattern that we see, at least that I see I should say.

[00:08:32] Dan: So that, that's sort of contextual, isn't it, Chris? So that happens. That's very interesting. And that's what, when we look at a team and they're behaving well, there's, there's, there's the unsaid. But in, in the broader world that you've studied of, um, you know, demography and so on, people don't always behave so well in other contexts, do they? Social media and so on. So I suppose there's a bit of a difference sometimes between what we see in the corporate setting and what we see in the, world, outside that particular zoo.

[00:08:59] Chris: Absolutely. I, like I said, I mean, really people are socialized to behave in these large organization contexts and most of the time that really isn't the, the issue. It's getting people to bring their fully authentic selves and their, their, their true thoughts to the equation, their fully, you know, open thoughts to the equation.

[00:09:17] Yeah, I mean, there are a number of techniques, right? We, we do a lot of, uh, we do a lot of breakout work. We do a lot of, uh, individual engagement, individual reflection. So you're always trying to stir the pot to try to get maximum engagement. You also need to create a, a humanistic environment. 

[00:09:34] And s almost all of our sessions open with what we call a cold open, and that that comes from comedy, the world of comedy, Saturday Night Live, what have you, where you know, rather than, you know, showing up and saying, here's what we're going to do today, you just, you just dive right in. And you dive right into something that engages people in the content of the day, but in a fun, interactive way that's unexpected.

[00:09:57] And so the introducing levity, uh, I think is always an invitation to humanity. So levity iss an important part of what we do. It's the, it's the icing, it's not the cake. The shows are not just fun and games, they're getting it real stuff. Um, but in order to access people's fuller humanity, starting, leading with levity, I think is, is really important. 

[00:10:17] Pia: and I've also found it as a cross-cultural leveler too. You know, when you're working with different cultures where you may be struggling to sort of find, what do we all have in common? We're, we're tending to look at what is different, that invitation for levity actually then, it's a human connection that we then find, isn't it? That then en enables us to sort of, ah, take the pressure off. Now we can start.

[00:10:42] Chris: Right. And when you, when you open that way, it really sends an important signal. First impressions matter. We all know, and it sends an important signal. Today's gonna be different. You're gonna be leaning forward, not leaning back. We're not, this is not a day of sitting and watching a bunch of PowerPoint presentations and sort of weeding through that. It's a day of rolling up our sleeves and engaging with each other, you know, as, as our honest selves. And that's the kind of spirit we try to create.

[00:11:07] I think another critical part is, is contracting with the leadership, right, of the group. And sometimes it's one leader, if it's their team and it's a command performance. You know, folks all report to one person. Sometimes it's several leaders, right? Uh, if it's a multi-stakeholder, multi cross-functional kind of setting. But the leaders, obviously, it's important that they set the right tone, uh, that they show some vulnerability, that they show a willingness to listen is absolutely critical to creating the right environment. And so we try to coach them through, you know, showing up in, in a way that's gonna be most productive for the team.

[00:11:45] Dan: Uh, uh, Chris, what are sort of things are people holding back on? Uh, you know what, and, and I guess the other way of putting it, what comes out when, when the process is succeeding? 

[00:11:56] Chris: I think, um, to give a concrete example, like a setting I recall in the past year or so, you have a part of the business that's struggling, right? And sort of everybody knows it. And it's awkward for the person who is sitting on top of that part of the business, right? But it's not that individual's fault that this part of the business is struggling. There's various, a whole bunch of things that come together. Some of them are macro environmental factors. Some of them are factors that relate to other parts of the organization, right? And so how, how can that person show up and be, uh, acknowledging the challenges in, in his or her area, and inviting others to share perspective on it that doesn't wind up being a game of kind of positioning and jockeying?

[00:12:47] And it's hard to, you know, most people. You know, the, the, the political nature of these conversations is usually somewhat subterranean, somewhat contained. It's seldom completely overt, but it's also seldom non-res, right? It, it, it's kind of always lurking in the background. And the fact that if I say something about my area that's not going well, that's someone else might, you know, use that against me in some other con future context for their advantage, um, even not meaning Ill, but just trying to advance whatever, um, cause they may have, whether it's personal or, or, or otherwise. You know, so that, that's the, that just gives you a flavor of the kind of thing you're, you're sort of always working with.

[00:13:30] And the reality is to work through very challenging, multifaceted challenges with a team, there has to be vulnerability, right? Or it sets an upper bound on the solution. It really sets some se some serious limits. And as a facilitator, there's only so much, some facilitators will go and say, this is a safe space. You can share anything. The reality is a facilitator, I can't promise that I, that's not, I don't have that authority, right? And it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise only the leadership, you know, who have the authority, uh, to advance ideas, to advance budgets and so forth, they, you know, they have a shot at convincing people that this is the case.

[00:14:08] Pia: It's interesting because, uh, in Sqaudify we have a question around challenger safety, and we've been looking at it now for the last few months and it's, it's. Stubbornly low inside the platform. Um, and it's, you know, it's one of those, as you say, it's, I think it's a, it's representative of the, of that safety of the muscle to challenge the status quo. And it's actually much harder than we think. So there is a lot at stake for people when they do that. So you have gotta, gotta work hard to create it, haven't you?

[00:14:43] Chris: Right. And so this gets to Amy Edmondson's work, of course, on psychological safety, which is, is well known and very important. We, we have a book at Deloitte called The Four Factors of Trust that talks about building trust among teams and between organizations and talent organizations and customers. And I, I like their framework. It's very, very simple. There are four, you know, it's, it's about unpacking trust. 'cause trust is a bit nebulous, right? Or it can be.

[00:15:12] And the way that they look at trust is it's got these four elements. Two of them are related to competence and two of them related to intent. The two related to competence are capability and reliability. Can you do what you are supposed to do and do you, do you actually show up, right? An intent is transparency and humanity. Transparency is, do you, do you openly share information, you know, whether it's convenient to you or not, and humanity is kind of a grab bucket of, you know, what are your, what are your, how do you show up as a, as a person, right?

[00:15:46] And having that framework just makes it a little more effective to unpack trust, to make it tractable and discussable. 'Cause I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what trust is, honestly, and how much of it is required. And we think in a continuum of trust that goes from distrust to transactional trust, to intimate trust. And distrust is just flat out always bad, right? And you want to mitigate against that. Um, transactional trust is, is often sufficient. That's often all you need to get the job done. And intimate. Trust is desirable in general, but it's costly. It actually takes a lot of time to develop intimate trust.

[00:16:29] And so the question is in what kind of situations and what kind of business challenges or organizational challenges require that level of investment and intimate trust so that you can be vulnerable so that you can work problems together, um, at a, at a higher level.

[00:16:47] Dan: So it sounds like there's a, you, you're talking about that that teams should have enough trust. Is that right? That you, that, that there's an investment in building it that could, could be wasted if you have this deep level of trust you don't ever use? Is that, would that, is that reasonable or am I oversimplifying?

[00:17:03] Chris: No, I, I absolutely agree. And, and the thing is that, and, and we both come across this a lot in our work, that there's a lot, a lot of different kinds of teams and a lot of different kinds of requirements, right? And so some teams, what is the level of trust that's required on your team, right? If you are a, a sales team or a regional sales team that gets together once a month or once a quarter to share leads, to share war stories to look at the results and so forth, you know, the level of trust is, is you just have to trust your colleagues that they're not gonna break into your filing cabinet and steal your leads, right?

[00:17:35] Um, but if you're a, if you're a Navy Seal, you know, and your partner, you know, you might literally depend on your life, right? Um, the trust in your partner, that's another level. Most teams are obviously somewhere in between those two. But again, you know, intimate, intimate, you know, transactional trust is required in any team. Um, but when is, when, where and how is, is intimate trust required and how do we invest in that?

[00:18:01] There's this kind of notion out there that I don't care for that. If we just kind of all knew each other's children's names somehow that would things. Yeah, their dog's names. Yeah. That's one of the most popular channels in Deloitte, of course. I think every, every company is the sharing the pet. Uh, yeah. Online stories.

[00:18:20] And, and so let's go out for drinks, let's go whitewater rafting or whatever. And it's not that these are bad things, but, um, but that's, you know, going back to the framework about trust, if I, if my problem with you Pia, is that you're very good at your job, but you don't respond to me and I don't think you're being transparent, yeah, I can memorize the birthdays of every relative you've ever had and it's not gonna, not gonna change things. Yeah. And so just being sensible about what, what, what are the aspects of trust that need to be improved and, and how do we go about that?

[00:18:50] Pia: And in that vein, I'm, I've, I've done some work to build that trust on social contracting. So actually being able to have the conversation upfront about the things that work well for you to build that trust. 'Cause otherwise it's a little bit smoke and mirrors. We're sort of finding it out. We need to be more explicit sometimes about it in our relationships. That makes more sense, doesn't it? Rather than I'm sort of tiptoeing around you and then, oh no, that obviously didn't work and that that takes a long time. Do you find those conversations powerful when you're able to do that?

[00:19:23] Chris: Yes, absolutely. And, and one of the approaches that we take, you know, once you've sort of unpacked trust a bit and agreed on what you need to work on, one of the most important things you can do is to run simulations to actually take real ish situations, like, construct scenarios and put them on the table and have people work it out.

[00:19:45] So, for example, uh, years back I remember working with a, a board where we had a bunch of conversations about trust, and then we put on the table four very different resumes for the next CEO, and said, we're gonna, unfortunately, the, the e you know, the CEO was not leaving anytime soon, but that's okay. Um, let's pretend he or she is, and here's four resumes and let's talk about which one you know you advance and why.

[00:20:12] And it's fascinating. Like people know it's all fake. Yet, within three to five minutes, they're in it. They're like, well, I really like this about this candidate. Well, I really like this about that candidate, and you're, you're getting to core values, right? And you're getting to, so those after trust conversations and sort of playing, actually putting into play, you're, you're basically playing with safe ammo here, right? 'Cause it's not, it, it, it is stunning when these are well-crafted and they don't have to be very long. Honestly, uh, these simulations get people into the real stuff shockingly fast.

[00:20:47] Pia: And they're inadvertently displaying all the behaviors that they probably need to display. But they've sort of, they've almost been seduced through the simulation to do so.

[00:20:57] Chris: Oh, there's no almost about it. Pia.

[00:20:59] Pia: And then the, it's it's the most, um, certainly in my career, it's the most powerful learning. And, you know, you debrief that really well and that is lifelong learning because you get, you get an outer body experience to see yourself in the situation, and then somehow it triggers a way of being to go, Hmm, next time I maybe need to reconsider the way that I, that I approach that sore really powerful.

[00:21:27] Dan: Uh, um, Chris, as we are geeking out about teams, I'm going, I have to ask you this gimme question. So why are we talking about teams? What's, what's particularly important about teams today? Has that changed? Um, is it, how's it looking for the future? Talk to us about that context for a bit, could you?

[00:21:45] Chris: Yeah, I'm a little baffled by this one because I, you know, often when you see literature on teams or presentations on teams, people talk about X percent of work is done in teams, or X percent of the productivity of organizations is due to teams and whatnot. And I, and I just sort of struggle with like, well, what else is there? I, I, I don't really understand, um, why the importance of teams needs to be justified. Um, but apparently in some circles it still does.

[00:22:12] I, I just think it's axiomatic that teams is where the real work happens, or there's moments in the day when we are heads down by ourselves, but that's not the bulk of the action in any organization that we work with. Uh, and so I, I just don't understand the counterfactual here. And I don't think it's particularly new. I think it's been the case forever.

[00:22:33] What, what I find more puzzling is like why team studies is not. More front and center in business, it's talked about a lot, but as you know, from reviewing the literature, we both, you know, know the literature, you know, there's a lot of good stuff in there, but it's, it's a struggle. There's, you know, defining the effectiveness of teams is very hard. Defining what a team is and who's in it and who's not in it, where the boundaries of teams are, and what's the difference between a team and a working group or a community of practice, all that, right?

[00:23:03] So it's. I, I don't, I actually don't, I've never heard a serious argument that teams don't matter, nor heard anybody stand up and say, you know, teams are nonsense. Um, but I just see a lot of confusion around teams and what makes them effective. And there are a few things that we know for sure. And then there's a lot of uncertainty and judgment and just good management judgment.

[00:23:24] Dan: Yeah, it's, and I suppose the counter that we've seen, it's not watertight, but there's so much effort and work and jobs and investment put behind talent, which is a highly individual thing and, and only, and very little of that is actually about collaboration. So I suppose that, that, while people don't say teams are bad, there's a, there's a counterforce, which is all about individual capability, i, I would say.

[00:23:51] Chris: A hundred percent. I mean, I think if you look at performance management systems, by and large, they, what do they, what do they reward? What do they recognize? What are they geared towards? The metrics are at the level of the unit and at the level of the individual. And it's understood that individuals sit within units and then they tend to be on several different teams. Sometimes you're on just one team, but by and large you're on multiple teams, most professionals these days. And those teams are not units of analysis in the perform, not formally in the performance management system typically.

[00:24:24] And I think, I don't think the performance people who design performance management systems are saying teams are important. I think they're just throwing their arms up and saying, we don't know how to. You know how to measure this uh, if, if, if you're on six teams or four teams or whatever, and what's your contribution? How do I measure you versus, and yet that's, that is again where so much of the value, uh, of professional work comes in.

[00:24:48] Pia: I, I find that the work that we do really prompts the thinking about what teams are. I think there's a lot of lip service about teams, and I think the understanding of teams can be quite superficial as a surface level. So it's, you know, we have, we're one team and there's 10,000 of us. Well, that's not a team. Or you know, there is a, we've got a collection, a group of individuals, and that's what it looks like on an org chart. So therefore we're a team. So there isn't. Really the, you know, the work that we do, I think for both sides, that actually really starts to take that to a new level to really uncover what is the rigor that's required around a high functioning team. 

[00:25:32] One of the things I keep coming up against is we're too busy, you know, we're too busy ,doing and driven by that. Individual KPIs, we're almost too busy to invest in the team. I mean, what do you think about that and do you come up against that challenge as well?

[00:25:53] Chris: Yes, and I think, I think at the end of the day, it is team leaders that choose how that plays out because the team leader often has, you know, has the most control over the agenda of what the group does when they get together. Most teams spend way too much time doing status updates for each other, right? Which could just be, you know, on a shared document online. There's no reason to, all these round robins or you know, just not very productive. That can be done asynchronously. There's just no reason to have meetings where people do updating each other. It's, it's kind of silly. Uh, and so it takes, you know, a courageous leader to say, that's not how we're gonna spend our time together. We're gonna spend our time together talking about the intersections of our work, not bringing each other up to date. 

[00:26:43] When we look at teams, I know you guys struggle with this as well. We, we talk about real teams as having four common attributes. Like what defines a real team as opposed to a working group, a community, et cetera. And one is they have a, they have a clear common purpose and with goals, right? You can, you can identify those. Uh, second is they have shared accountability, right? They, they're accountable to and with each other, uh, around, you know, attaining those goals. Third is there's a high degree of interdependence to their work, right? They're not functioning in independent silos as, but they're, they actually need to pass work back and forth a lot. And then the fourth is a, a density of commitment, uh, time commitment and energy commitment. And I, I think of a team member, a minimal requirement of being on a team is a day a week. Like, I just, I don't understand how less than a day a week would be a, you'd be a member of an actual team

[00:27:37] And then an interesting exercise to do with almost anybody is tap them on their shoulder and ask them, how's your team doing? And see which team comes to mind first, right? And, that's, and that's Pat Lencioni's notion of the first team. And everybody, you know, most people, most people have a first team and they know what it is. And it's not always the one that you expect or what the, their team leader might want or expect of them

[00:28:02] Dan: I love that the Patrick Lencia, that number one team idea is brilliant, but I, I like your very pragmatic diagnostic that you use for that, the tap on the shoulder. Excellent. Um, while we're on the subject of diagnostics, Chris, I know Deloitte has a fantastic track record in accelerating teams. Could, could you talk us through the, um, the approach of the firm on that? Could you, I think it'd be really interesting to hear.

[00:28:23] Chris: Yeah, absolutely. We, we have a diagnostic tool and a suite of solutions or interventions rather, uh, around team effectiveness that's known as Team Alchemy. It was developed by Deloitte Greenhouse in collaboration with, uh, Deloitte Human Capital. And it's got, and it's actually very, and we've talked about our various systems in Squadify. There's, there's some real similarities as we read the same literature and there's some significant differences as well. But we're covering similar landscape here. And our, our framework starts with a, a variation on the old saw, ready, willing, and able. Uh, ours is ready, able, and willing. Um, and we've got within those three broad buckets, three items each, or three elements, what we call elements each.

[00:29:04] So within Ready, the ready category is all about what does a team need to succeed before it even starts doing any work. So what, what's the sort of setup that you need? And there are three, the three elements to that are alignment, right? Your direction, what, what the heck you're trying to achieve. Governance, so decision rights, sponsorship, uh, you know, high level org design, and then resources, um, just being properly resourced. So that's the first, uh, bucket.

[00:29:31] Able is related to capabilities, do you have the right skills on board practices? So workflow processes, core processes and so forth. And agility once you know, inevitable surprises occur, how do you adapt and, uh, respond. And then willing is the deeper human stuff, of course, which is trust, motivation, and purpose. So that's, you know, collaboration, but as well as individual rewards and recognition and a deeper sense of purpose. 

[00:30:00] Uh, so that, that's a holistic system. You know, there's a lot of different ways to carve up the, the, the territory and the landscape, but pretty much anything you can think of that would affect a team's success is, is embodied there somewhere. And I think, I think similar to your system, there's a couple important element, uh, factors here. One is that, um. And is 360 degrees. It is holistic. It's not just about collaboration, but the exogenous or external factors of are you set up for success by the organization is just as important. 

[00:30:30] Uh, and secondly, we, we assume that every team has a different profile of what matters most to their success. And so in our survey which has roughly 60 questions, uh, each question, the participants are asked to rate, you know, is this true of our team, and how critical is it to our success? Both of those, because I had mentioned before, like trust, for example, on some teams, you, you must have a very high level of trust to succeed on other teams, transactional trust is sufficient and there's no reason to to worry about it more than that.

[00:31:00] Pia: And when you're working with teams, do you see patterns of where they're finding challenges? Do you start, do you see those patterns emerge?

[00:31:09] Chris: Yeah, of course we do. And, and you know, our, our data set at this point is approaching a hundred, right? So it's, it's not as, as massive as yours, but it's, it's substantial. And these are all. Important client, executive, you know, sessions by, by and large. You know, again, when you tap somebody on the shoulder and you say, how's your team doing? Uh, first I gotta tell you which team they're talking about. But then, you know, the, the, the, the baseline response to how's your team doing is Yeah, pretty good. You know, we've got some issues, but pretty good. That's kind of the baseline, right?

[00:31:40] So I would say, I would say even as much as that's the fat part of the bell curve and, you know, three quarters, 80% of teams are some version of, we're doing pretty good and we've got room for improvement, right? There's roughly 10% of teams show up as what I'll politely call dumpster fires. Uh, maybe not so politely. Uh, and 10% of teams show up as nothing to see here, which I'm not sure I ever believe, but you do, you do find those where they're just like, yep, we're, we're awesome across the board. Thank you very much. Keep moving.

[00:32:12] Uh, and, and so that's, that's kind of the broad profile, and then at the level of the elements, right? We baseline all the nine elements across our, our databases or growing database and resources, pretty much everybody whinges about. So that has a low baseline, like everybody feels they don't have enough resources. So, you know, you have to really show up with a terrible situation on resources to score anything on our database. 'cause the database says, yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what everybody says. Not a problem. And uh, then the ones that score high almost universally are capabilities. Motivation and purpose. Like, we have the right skills, we're very motivated, and we know why we're doing what we're doing. Thank you very much. And so those, those occasionally exceed the benchmarks, but, but not by that much, you know, in general.

[00:33:02] So that leaves five, five elements that we spend most of our time on, and those are, um, probably seem, be familiar to you, alignment, right? Do we really have alignment on where we're going, what we're trying to accomplish? Governance, our decision rights clear, right, comes up pretty often. Uh, practices, you know, a lot of, fair amount of frustration out there about, you know, workflow processes, technology platforms, et cetera. Agility, you know, are we really open to new approaches? Are we really responsive to changes in the environment, as fa as quickly as we should be? And then, and then finally trust, which we've, we've, we've already covered a fair amount, right? Trust comes up a fair amount, specifically related to feedback. Honest and direct feedback, right? Comes up a lot.

[00:33:49] Pia: And we find, or I, I find in the work that I'm doing that all those elements are the how that a team works and that conversation isn't had as much as what we're doing. So you talked about, you know, lots of meeting time being consumed to report back on status updates. Have we lost an, a sort of. An innate natural art to be reflective about how we work together? Does it require prompting it from an external source to get there? And, and I know that's dependent on the leader, but Dan and I often wonder, is this a response to past post covid? Is it, is it a shift in our ways of working? Once we have the conversation about how it's. It's a bit of a game changer because the team picks it up, but it needs a prompting to get there.

[00:34:47] Chris: Yeah. Uh, absolutely agree. And, uh, an interesting reference point I'd suggest to your, your listeners is an article you can look up by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker a few years ago about coaching, right? So Atul Gawande's surgeon and thought leader on all things healthcare related. Uh, and he was, he was watching tennis one day. I'm a big tennis fan and player myself. And, and he was watching Rafael Nadal, who at the time was the greatest player, greatest male player in, in, in tennis, number one in the world. And his uncle Tony was there and, you know, giving him tips and stuff. And, and he is like, why does the world's number one tennis player need a coach? Like, why does he need to be told what to do? Like, isn't he there?

[00:35:31] And, uh, and Gawande did a fascinating thing. He went back and even though he'd been, you know, he's, he's at the, he felt he was at the top of his game as a surgeon, he went and, uh, hired. Uh, an old, uh, med school professor of his to come and watch him do a few surgeries and give him feedback. And he was amazed how much, how many observations the fella had. And of course none of them were like life-threatening mistakes he was making. But they were fine points. They were nuanced. They were, but they were important and he learned from that.

[00:36:00] And so I, I think the fact that we all need good coaching at times is, is, it's just a truism. It's, it's absolutely true and it's hard for you to see yourself, right? When I play tennis, I think I'm hitting my backhand right? And then my, my pro shows me a video on his iPhone. I personally think his device is broken. Um, but, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, uh. I'm not doing what I think I'm doing 'cause I can't see myself clearly, right?

[00:36:27] And, and teams can't see themselves clearly, uh, often. And so the value that, uh, that, that a Squadify or a Team Alchemy brings is to hold up a mirror and, you know, let's have a conversation about these things.

[00:36:38] Dan: I, I love the idea that your coach is gone to the lengths of having using deepfake technology to make your serve look worse, Chris, but I, it sounds like it's definitely happening. 

[00:36:46] Um, so, so one, one of the things we're seeing a lot at the moment in, in our, um, practice and just, I'm just wondering if we can return a bit to your, where you started actually on strategic conversations, we see a, a rather, a vague, really a loose relationship with clarity in our, in our language. So people think they've got a clear goal. They generally haven't when you ask them the tap on the shoulder question. And certainly a real dip in this question around clear plan to achieve the goal, you know, what you actually gonna do together. You know, this piece about joint accountability and interdependence of the team. We, we just see that being pretty weak. Um. 

[00:37:24] And I, I suspect this comes back down to these strategic conversations to some extent. Do you want to dive into that? What those, what they can look like and how teams can improve this alignment through good conversations?

[00:37:35] Chris: Yeah, it, it's, it is a bit of a conundrum. Because we often see, you know, people come to us, client teams, leaders, organizations, and say, we don't need to talk about the strategy or a direction 'cause everybody's clear on that, right? You say, oh, really? And then if you do something as obnoxious is asking people to write it down, you know, in one sentence and then read it back, of course you get, you know, you get 11 answers from 10 people . 

[00:38:01] And so that, you know, having that conversation, you know, I, I think that leaders typically think they've said something 10 times when they've said it three times. And the reality is, you, you just kind of have to keep reinforcing the most important things over and over again. And if you don't, you, you get misalignment. And the challenge is that you don't want to get into a game of wordsmithing, 'cause wordsmithing. So, so it is okay that people have their own words to express. You need to be in the same ballpark, right? But I think having like a, a 15 word statement that any individual can spit out as this is our strategy or what have you, I've, I've literally never seen that. I don't expect to see it. Um, so it is okay to have a variation in how people in internalize and interpret and, and play out within, but it has to be within certain boundaries, right? And so that's, that's a, it's a judgment call, but, but you've gotta, you have to have the, the conversation more than you think you do is the, I'm short answer to that one.

[00:39:04] Pia: I, I had that classic one where a CEO once said to me, everyone understands the vision. I, I emailed it to, to the organization. And there is that. Okay, there's gonna be a little gap here between information and understanding and, and that's where the clarity may fall down. So I think, I think that's true. And I think also, we are seeing, I, I'm sure you are seeing that there's a, there's a lot of complexity going on in the world today too, which interferes with clarity. There's a lot of distraction, and competing interests and, and that, that, that plays for airtime in the brain. You're just trying to keep focused. What, what is it that I'm meant to be working on?

[00:39:46] Chris: Absolutely. I I do think you mentioned Covid earlier though, and I do think if there's one positive trend I would point to coming out the other end of Covid, I do think that there's a much more. Intentional use of face time going on in most organizations now, that there is an appreciation that just sort of making people show up on a regular basis to be in the same room. That's not magical. And, and also like all of us, you know, working out of our, you know, home offices every day is not awesome either. And so there appears to be a, a broad consensus that I see in most professional work, um, that some form of what we call hybrid, which frankly we've been doing hybrid forever before Covid, like, I don't, it's not a new thing, right?

[00:40:33] But like our team, for example, in San Francisco, the Dete Greenhouse team in San Francisco, we, we all come to the office Tuesdays and Thursdays. And that's a religious thing. We were, we're, we're all committed to it. And it's great. And so you have this critical mass of FaceTime and you, you know, that when you're there, it's, it's special. Like this is the time to go for a walk with someone, to have lunch with someone. And, you know, Wednesday, Friday, it's fine. You, you, you know, you, you get that. But you value because the time is constrained, you value it more. If you have, you know, if it's plentiful, you just, you squander it like any resource. And so I, I do see some, I do see a lot of benefit to more intentionality to use of FaceTime out there.

[00:41:14] Dan: That's really positive, Chris. Um, and I'm gonna ask you the, the sort of killer question, Chris, if you don't mind. But boiling down all of your many years of experience and thousands of hours, I can't remember, I think you told us how much time you've spent having strategic conversations with, um, with teams, it's, it's huge. And you're probably unique in the world in that. Um, what would you say to our listener to go out and do, um, to, to, to solve a, a pain pain point that you see in a lot of teams right now? What's your sort of takeaway for them? That they can, they can do and they come back from a walk with their dog after listening to this podcast?

[00:41:52] Chris: I, I think that one just very, very common challenge in these situations is a lack of clarity on decision rights. And, and I, I think it's just very unnecessary. I think a lot of leaders prefer to have decision rights, opaque for whatever reason, avoiding responsibility, avoiding, you know, transparency. But it, it just, it just backfires. It undermines credibility of leadership and there's just no reason for it.

[00:42:21] So, in other words, if you have 12 people in a room and you put a really important challenge on the table, you know, the notion that we're all working on it together implies a kind of democracy, right, to the proceedings. And the result may or may not be democratic in that sense, right? And so, and it's fine. I mean, people don't always expect to have decision rights, but they do expect to have some clarity on how the decision will be made. And I think if you, if a leader shows up in a room and says, look, the 12 of us are gonna talk about this, we really value your perspective, we want to get a 360 perspective on this challenge. And don't use the phrase, we want people to feel like they've been heard because that's, that's rubbish. It's, that's you, you, you, that's a long way to say, we want to hear people, right?

[00:43:11] Dan: Yeah. 

[00:43:12] Chris: That's what you should be saying. 

[00:43:14] Dan: Yeah. It's so, it's fishy. Very fishy.

[00:43:16] Chris: It's, yeah, no, and, and then say, and then after we've processed all of this, you know, the three of us will go and we will make the decision, we'll circle back and let you know, right? And that's clear. And people, people are grownups for the most part, and they appreciate and understand that. But if you go through a day wrestling a problem with 12 people without saying who's gonna make a decision at the end of the day, or being vague about that. It's, it's, it's, it's undermining of, of, of everything and just not helpful. And I think that's one easy, easy thing to fix in most, uh, uh, in many situations.

[00:43:52] Pia: And that goes back to this precious resource time. You know, people don't want their time wasted by pretending to be heard and then, and, and then a decision not being made. And I think it goes back to your earlier point about being intentional about face-to-face and the previous comment, sometimes we don't. Afford enough time to work on how we operate. It is like a common theme here. We've gotta use time well with a clear intention to really maximize how the team operates and, and delivers.

[00:44:27] Dan: Chris, I have a team that's, that I'm working with that's currently working on decision making and I think they'll find that, um, final point, invaluable as well as your many other points from your experience. So thank you so much for being on the show today. It's been wonderful and, uh, really enjoyable for us to geek out with you, but also to tap into that, uh, that knowledge of yours. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:44:48] Chris: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. 

[00:44:50] Dan: Well, what a delightful conversation that was. Absolutely. Just, I know. We were, we were reveling in it.

[00:44:59] Pia: We are, that was, that was just basking. Basking in team geekiness. But it was fantastic. And you know, Chris has just got an amazing mind and, and, and his experience is so broad and deep, but he's incredibly concise. Like he's. It's just got that really great way of packaging things.

[00:45:24] Dan: And brings in that, um, I think that's, you know, he brings in the science, but also recognizes the sort of fluffiness around this thing that's not completely, um, understood. And I think it was really interesting thinking about, you know, that question where he about teams, you know, being the deliver of value in organizations. I, I think if I, I've been pondering on that actually a little bit and thinking yes. 

[00:45:49] It took me back to actually when we started out, um, on our, you know, to found Squadify. We realized that people were collaborating. You know, a lot of things were divided them, but they were finding their way in this very difficult environment, but actually bringing, grabbing people and working with them.

[00:46:05] But I think that's different from working as a team, different from actually saying, right. We, you know, do you know what I mean? If we look you in the eye virtually or in real life, but we are us, this little group is together to do a single thing. So I think maybe that's a little bit of clarity that, um, that the world could do with actually that beyond just, yeah, we're we, I work with you and I work with you, so we're a team. No, actually we're a unit and that's a different thing.

[00:46:30] Pia: it's a bit motherhoody. You know, I think I mentioned, I think people pay lip service to it. We skate over the surface and, and assume that we're a team when potentially we're not, we're a group of individuals and I think what we're trying to sort of get more concise about and, and more, sorry, more precise about is the difference between the two and the impact that that has. And actually you have to work on it like any, any relationship.

[00:46:55] I, I loved how he used the comment, he said, levity is the invitation to humanity. You know, how, how to, to make people feel comfortable. And I think that's a really. Great little insight for all leaders out there. You know, sometimes we get that degree of anxiety about we've gotta do this right. Whereas actually humanity in us, that bit of humor is the bit that, that, that, as he, as Chris said, it's, it's the icing, not the

[00:47:25] Dan: not the cake, yeah. And I love that because actually teamwork has been rather ruined by all that eighties and nineties oh, team building stuff, which was all about the icing and not enough about the cake. But it did also make me think, I think I've got this right. Maybe a listener will correct me, but, um, I think it was John Bolton who left Trump's office. Um, he was his. He was his chief of staff, I think. Um, might have all that wrong. It's all from memory. Um, but he said one of the problems with the Trump White House was there was no humor. And coming from the military, he just thought that was a, a huge miss from a leadership standpoint. So that levity point is a, is a really good one. Maybe we could get someone on the show to talk a little bit more about that. It's a, it's a very important point.

[00:48:10] Pia: Um, what did you think about the holding back?

[00:48:12] Dan: Ah, that was so interesting the way he started like that. It was sort of a, that was a massive learning for me, really, a realization, um, that people behave themselves. He said, you know, we are hyper socialized to behave, aren't we? And um, and I thought that was really, so we don't, we very rarely see blowups and bad and sort of visibly bad behavior. Your problem is what lies beneath. And I thought that was. I've sort of known that, but that, that really clarified it for me and I think it's worth, yeah, I think that's a, that's a top tip for anyone on a team, not to expect people to be just shouting at each other, which is pretty rare, but that actually, it's what they're not saying that's the problem.

[00:48:53] Pia: No, and I think there's that. Challenges safety, I think. I think there's also, sometimes people don't go there because they don't feel confident enough about challenging things. So we sort of get caught in that murky middle, which is sort of polite and taking part but not fully committed, you know? And I think that's a, a slightly different, slightly different way.

[00:49:15] And, and that's what he talked about, the trust. That's when you then have to show that vulnerability and get past that. that phase. Um, and I've seen that in team. You, you, it's, it's a moment you literally feel in your, in your gut when you are part of it. The moment when somebody steps into a little bit of unknown, is a bit vulnerable, and everybody just goes. Normally is like, oh, thank God, we've, yeah, we're, we're now in it, we're, we are now able to actually, I think, contribute more to the conversation and that then takes that whole trust level to a new level.

[00:49:56] Dan: And I really liked on trust the, that, that he, that you don't have to. Invest loads and loads of time building a hundred percent trust if you don't need it. There's a, there's a concept of enough trust, a little bit like we had with the, um, folks in Bridge housing talking about there's enough psychological safety, you've got enough to, to move on. And it's, ah, it's interesting 'cause they sound like things you just want to max out. But actually, like anything, it's in balance. It's a, it's a, it's, it's a balance and you have to be deliberate about, right, well actually this is, this is, this is enough. Now we can, we can work with this and keep moving.

[00:50:30] Pia: And that leads to the final point for me, which is why do people invest in their teams, or actually why don't they sometimes invest. And what I mean by that is that they actually, you do have to get to that point of vulnerability. And you do have to get to that point of realizing that, that I could be better. I could see things differently, I could be coached. And I thought that was a, a great story from Atul Gawande about that need that, that, that need to be coached to be able to, a team can't see itself. And that's the difference. That's I thought was really interesting, and you need that third eye that's able to go, Hmm, yeah, actually that didn't go so well. This could be better. And that was great.

[00:51:14] Dan: I know we've done this. We go into a team, we watch a team at work, and it's sort of, I had one a few months ago, they say sort of, so what are you observing? Well, I'm observing hundreds of things that are really obvious to anyone that you could do differently as a team, but it's really hard when you're on the stage to actually look at yourself as well. So I think that external view from almost anyone, I love the story of, um, as you say, Atul Gawande asking his colleagues, but also, you know, Nadal's uncle giving him, giving him advice and so on. So, um, it's a, it's a really powerful thing and something, any team could do is just grab someone and say, come and see how we're doing. Give us a little bit of help, because some, anyone could do it. So, um, but that, yeah, wonderful.

[00:51:55] But that is it for this episode. You can find show notes where you are listening and also at squadify.net. And if you've enjoyed the show, please share the love and recommend it to your friends. If you'd like to contribute to the show, just email us at wenotmepod@gmail.com. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:52:15] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.