[00:00:00] Dan: In these complex times, it can be really hard to see patterns to identify among the thousands of things that appear to matter what matters most. That's when it can be useful to hear from someone who sees so many teams and organizations that they can discern these patterns and so shed light on the best ways to move forward.

[00:00:18] Dan: Our guest in this episode of We, not Me, is that person. Susan Asiyanbi is founder and CEO at the Olori Network, and a former Chief Transformation Officer among many other roles at Teach for America. She has deep expertise in consulting to CEOs and their teams and supports them in handling the key challenges of the day. This episode will be invaluable to anyone who wants a fresh approach and to break outta the norm to achieve more. 

[00:00:49] 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.

[00:00:56] Pia: And I am Pia Lee.

[00:00:58] Dan: And |Pia, I'm gonna start this, um, this episode with a question that you ask our guests in the upcoming interview, actually, um, which I think is interesting. You're working with loads of teams in large enterprises. What are you seeing? What are you seeing out there?

[00:01:12] Pia: I'm seeing that organizations are starting to see the value of teams. They're really starting to see the difference between groups of individuals and teams. So they may not see it initially, but by golly, once they get an inkling of the power of teamwork and how it impacts that collective outcome, yeah, you sort of don't go back really.

[00:01:36] Pia: So I'm seeing that, that awareness based on. Work intensity, consistent change. You know, our old post transformation stress disorder, burnout, um, isolation, um, and some of the complex structures inside multinationals just don't work for people to be efficient. So putting 'em into, into groups and teams, into teams where they can really get a collective sense of what they're trying to do and work together to achieve it.

[00:02:05] Dan: And are they, uh, do they know what that means? If you know what I mean? 

[00:02:09] Pia: No, not necessarily. I, I think, yeah, I think, I think we still come up against, um, quite a lot of grayness what about what a team is. but once you've experienced that collective sense. And you either got collective clarity or alignment and then the behaviors that align around it, then it's a bit like, uh, that that's a lived experience of what that feels like. 

[00:02:30] Dan: Interesting. Interesting. I'm seeing, um, in that teaming big, you know, teamwork piece that, um, still clarity is a problem. Obviously it's the first con condition of being a team that you've got shared clarity, but also specifically, actually I'm having two different experiences because one is sort of the, does this, resistance to transparent.

[00:02:54] Dan: Execution, you know, sort of drawing on agile principles or they're using a Kanban. There is a resistance and I think people, it's a sort of defensive mechanism that there is this co so there's a danger, there's a comfortable, uh, vagueness about what I'm doing this week or what I'm working on, and people sort of Just push back on that. At the other end, I'm working with a new client who, and we are using, um, a Kanban to drive an eight week sprint to get a big job done. It's really time compressed. Oh my goodness. They just went straight for it. They've used it before they cut, started participating. We did Sprint zero, knocked it off. Sprint one coming up.

[00:03:29] Dan: You know, it's, the standups are in, do you know what I mean? When it happens and you've got people. Who are doing it. It's great. And we, we launched and, um, finished a d uh, Squadify in 24 hours. So we've got a quick, quick, quick read on too. So, yeah, motoring. So when it happens, you just think, oh, how glorious, how glorious is that?

[00:03:48] Dan: So, um, but all of these things, as I said, you, you've asked this question of our, of our guest today because, um, all of these things will give, be given a good going over, in our conversation today. with Susan Asbi, um, who is the CEO founder and CEO of the Olori Network.

[00:04:05] Dan: And, um, she works in the u does a lot of work in the us um, and globally has a big team. And, yeah, you ask her that question, so is we're gonna have a really wonderful. Sort of scan of what's happening in se, particularly senior leadership teams. I think this applies to all, um, of what she's seeing and what the solutions to this are.

[00:04:26] Dan: So it's a just a, this is gonna be, it is a very powerful episode. If you wanna just immerse yourself in the current state of teams and TE and leadership, this is the one for you to really get a deeper understanding of, of what it takes to build a high performing and beautiful team. 

[00:04:47] Pia: and a really warm welcome to Susan Asiyanbi. Lovely to have you on the show, Susan.

[00:04:52] Susan: Thanks for having me Pia and Dan. Um, I'm so excited to learn with you.

[00:04:56] Pia: yeah, this is gonna be a rich conversation. You're the CEO of the Olori Network. We're gonna hear more about that and the great work that you do. so, um, I'm gonna hand you back to Dan who's going to, it's called a conversation starter. I'm not sure whether it's a conversation stopper. Sometimes

[00:05:11] Dan: I think it is. Sometimes it's sort of yes, but we'll see. So I have a card for you and I've cut it at this place, but it's cut the same time as the same way as last week. Um, so if anyone who's paying attention will notice that we've got the same card, but it's quite nice one, which is my simple pleasure is So what's, what's simple pleasures? Do you have Susan?

[00:05:30] Susan: My simple pleasure. Um, the first thing that comes to mind is alone time is my 

[00:05:38] Dan: Okay. 

[00:05:39] Susan: Um, in a world that is so busy with so many things, from children to husband, to work to friends and family members, to everything happening in society. That alone time to just be with your own thoughts, to be still to reflect, um, sometimes can feel like a real, real gift, um, versus a necessity. 

[00:06:01] Dan: that's so powerful. Susan, you strike me as someone who is, um, quite deliberate in what you do. So in that time, do you manage to cut yourself off from the bombarding of social media or the, all that stuff? Do you manage to get some actual away time?

[00:06:16] Susan: Yeah, absolutely. I don't get enough of it is the honest truth. Um, but I'm an introvert. Most people assume because of the nature of my work that I'm with people all the time, that I derive energy from it. I derive energy from learning. Um, but my greatest source of feeling is reflection time, like really just silence to just be with myself.

[00:06:36] Susan: And so I have to, in the same way that I tell executives that I work with, have to actually create the practice of it, not as a treasure or a gift to be had, but as a necessity of being a strong leader. 

[00:06:48] Dan: Well, I think we can finish there. We've, I think the listeners has learned enough that that's, that's a good enough, good enough episode, I think. No. Um, so Susan, tell us about, a bit about you, uh, your bio in a box. What, what brought you here today 

[00:07:01] Susan: Well, my parents are from Nigeria. Um, and so as a little girl, I would actually visit there often, and early on people would notice I was always asking questions. If you know me, you know that I am the curious person. I'm asking questions about why things are the way they are, what is the cultural tradition and why that matters and what's the history of it.

[00:07:21] Susan: In Europe, there's a word that elders would use for me, said they would call me in an olori. And I would ask my parents, what does that mean? Why do they keep calling me an olori?? And my parents would say, that's a person. It's the leader in a patriarchal society. The fact that they are using that word to describe you as a woman means that they believe, you know, how to move people, how to shift things, how to ask questions in ways, um, that derive new learning.

[00:07:46] Susan: And so years later, I helped grow and scale a national education nonprofit, teach for America, and I left for a bit to earn my MBA at Northwestern. Um, I spent some time in the corporate sector, and then I returned to the nonprofit world where I continued to leave big national teams through significant change in bold outcomes.

[00:08:05] Susan: And then something started to happen. Um, board members, other executives noticed that I could drive results and lead through really, really messy things. And high stake moments, and yet my teams would stay intact. It would be high trust, high performing all the 

[00:08:21] Susan: results that people assume when you're leading through messy and change those, you just assume those results are gonna go down.

[00:08:26] Susan: And mines actually would get higher than my traditional results. And people would say like, what's your formula? What's your secret? And so I think over time I started to realize like, hmm, this thing I've been taking for granted is everyone does this. I had honed a set of leadership principles and practices that worked and that not everyone had access to.

[00:08:45] Susan: And that came the Olori Network, um, an executive leadership practice and firm. At Olori, We studied, we obsess about, we research, and learned what the strongest executive teams. And boards do differently. Um, and we try to capture and codify those insights into principles, practices, pitfalls, case studies about what it really takes to lead lasting change. 

[00:09:09] Pia: that's pretty amazing actually, and, and a different approach to it. So, tell us some of the top things that you are seeing. You're observing.

[00:09:18] Susan: Yes. um, one, the importance of alignment. So I'm gonna think about this week even alone. What are the common things that have come up? Doesn't matter the context, it doesn't matter the sector. Every CEO, every board that I've engaged with, themes, alignment, themes.

[00:09:36] Susan: Decision making and how to lead a decision in a way to invest people. themes, prioritization, and how I spend my time. I would say maybe those are the biggest ones. There's so many, but I would say those are the ones that are universal and they come up time and time again. And I would say the thread that strands all of them, relationships, How people relate to one another, how they learn to negotiate competing differences across departments, how they learn to integrate to get to a better outcome. It never fails that the level of clarity, the level of intentionality around relationships is core and key. Um, and underinvested in quite honestly.

[00:10:20] Pia: it's very interesting because there's a lot of alignment between the way that Dan and I have seen the data from S how that the trends that have un, un sort of unfolded in front of us in over the last six we years and, and what you are, what you are saying.

[00:10:39] Pia: alignment is a really interesting thing because We assume it, don't we, particularly as a CEO, and you assume, but it's a little bit like Chinese whispers. And I think what I've learned is that the skill of getting clarity, without, without being too didactic about it or being too sort of, you know, too directive around it, is an art to get that clarity so that people really understand what, what, what are you seeing?

[00:11:06] Susan: Absolutely. I, my observation is that people don't spend enough time. Thinking about the opportunity or problem that they're trying to go after, and that everyone feels a level of urgency, understandably, um, given the results that they're trying to pursue. Getting into action. And what I would say is if you truly want alignment, you're gonna spend a lot more time making sure that everyone involved is really clear on, here's the problem statement, here's the opportunity statement.

[00:11:32] Susan: Here's what's gonna happen as a result of doing this. Here's our hypothesis about why this matters. Because I, my, what I notice is that people use the same language and think they're saying the same things. And so when I start to observe executive teams, everyone's nodding their head, mm-hmm. That is what we're gonna do.

[00:11:47] Susan: And they can move into action. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're using the same words. And then if you just slow them down a little bit and say, okay, everybody agrees, go around and say why you agree. Why, what is the thing that you think that you are trying to solve for by going after x? It never fails. All of a sudden everyone realizes they are not saying the same thing, they are not aligned and they don't see it the same way.

[00:12:11] Susan: And that is where, to me, the magic happens. It's where the beauty is. Um, because once you get, you can understand that, okay, we see we have different data points. Then the question is, how do you use that difference to work for you? Um, because there's, there's a lot of richness there.

[00:12:25] Dan: and if that, if that alignment isn't there, what are the downstream issues that emerge? What happens? 

[00:12:32] Susan: Breakdowns? Breakdowns. Breakdowns everywhere, and then breakdowns. And they manifest very subtly, but they get louder over time, um, because they become the baggage that. People carry alongside with them. Um, they look like everyone leaves the table. People get to work themselves with their teams, and then the teams start to talk to each other and bicker because their understanding of what they're going after is not the same and everyone thinks they're right.

[00:13:01] Susan: So someone is doing something wrong and instead of realizing the problem statement, there's, there's lack of clarity. People assume. Wrong, like, um, that individuals are wrong, that people don't understand what they should be doing. And so you just start to see all around the way drop balls. You start to see people bickering and a lot more energy spent on relationships, spent on not knowing how to work together versus on ideating and innovating.

[00:13:30] Susan: Um, you start to see time wasted even on problems, hours. Like I, I thought I saw, saw a Harvard business analysis on how much time people spend in meetings, 500,000 hours a year in large organizations, in ineffective decision making meetings and ineffective meeting time. And to me, that's just a reflection of just a lot of wasted time.

[00:13:52] Pia: that's not very thrilling, is

[00:13:53] Dan: it's not thrilling. It is not, but it's really, and I just a, a quick one Susan, that you'll, uh, really appreciate is, one things we see is that, obviously teams are under-resourced and they often report to us that under-resourced, but as soon as they work on a. Alignment or clarity as we call it, that that starts to be solved.

[00:14:12] Dan: And I'd never thought of it, but that basic idea of bickering in meetings or talking around, that's just wasted time that you could be spending on, on the task. Yeah, that's, that's fascinating.

[00:14:23] Susan: and that wasted time. Dan, just to pick up on that, it's not just wasted time at work. I sit at airports a lot, going to meetings, and the amount of times that I sit and hear people complain about their colleagues, like just random people, I'm sitting at the airport and they're on the 

[00:14:40] Susan: phone And they're telling their partner, their friends, there's 

[00:14:42] Dan: said that, 

[00:14:43] Susan: this.

[00:14:44] Susan: And so imagine not only the wasted time at work of things not getting done, the wasted energy and joy that you bring into your out of work hours, um, that again takes energy away from you.

[00:14:57] Pia: And then, then there's, or there's even, there's a level above this, which is you're having a meeting and you might be on, you know, zoom or teams, but you've got a WhatsApp group for the chosen few that are then having a separate conversation

[00:15:13] Pia: about the conversation that you're looking at through your teams and that, and that happens.

[00:15:19] Pia: So I mean it, we are naturally. You know, we we're, we're, we're naturally drawn to connection, but we're not getting connection in the, in the team. With that alignment, essentially, you've got people talking about how it's not working for them and that, and, and that's gonna be a hand break, a massive hand break.

[00:15:40] Pia: Where are you? Designing the solution, what does the, like, how, where do you start with teams to try and get that alignment?

[00:15:48] Susan: absolutely. One of the biggest things that we, Really focus on when we work with executive teams is let's not start any work until we're really clear on what we're trying to get done. And everyone around the table is really clear what we're trying to get done. So this whole like identifying what's the problem statement or the opportunity statement, people make a ton of assumptions.

[00:16:05] Susan: We already know that. Let us tell you and then please go help us do this other thing. Yeah, let's move on. 'cause we have things to get done and our, we always tell them, actually spending a lot more time here, you will save so much time and action trying to go seek an opportunity or solve a problem. So I would say the very first thing we do, we call it our discovery, is we try to discover.

[00:16:27] Susan: It's like, let's leave with some curiosity about what's happening in the system, and let's see, once we start to ask curious questions around what is it that you're trying to get done, to what degree can people in their own terms talk about what they see as the vision and the strategy being, and why you're going after that and what the biggest priorities of the company are and what that means for your customers.

[00:16:47] Susan: You start to get a glimpse as to what the highest. Need areas are and what are the things that are really working for teams and organizations? So I would say our first point of entry, quite honestly, is trying to lead through relationships. We become in relationship with the customers, we get in relationship with the teams, and we let them lead us to what they are seeing, um, as a way of trying to identify where the access and access points are. And we believe teams don't do this enough with one another, quite honestly. 

[00:17:17] Dan: We'd say the same thing, but that's, that's beautifully put, Susan. Um, so if we, so that's alignment. The next one you mentioned, and I really want to hear your thoughts on this, is decision making because our data's showing that decision making is in decline. 

[00:17:32] Susan: Decision making more broadly? I'm always fascinated by it because the number of frameworks that exist around decision making, racy, rapid moca, I mean, you choose it. You go to a company and an organization across the globe and they have their decision making framework, which suggests decision making is a thing that can really accelerate or hamper, outcomes. And yet, even though people have all these frameworks, they still reach out asking for help. They're still stuck. They will show us the decision making framework.

[00:18:02] Susan: And so one of the things we have identified and named is that what we hear from executives, what we hear from team members is that the decision making effectiveness, the quality of the decision making, the speed of decision making, the strength of the execution of the decision making, they're always compromised, which means that they are not outperforming the best work that they could be doing.

[00:18:25] Susan: And my, uh, hypothesis, my observation is that frameworks are really, really helpful, and yet they have to be paired with like behavioral change and adaptive ways in which how people relate to those frameworks.

[00:18:40] Susan: in our framework, we call it the leveled up leadership. Decision making frame. We believe that there are five parts of thinking about any decision making framework. The first one we talked about, not surprisingly, is getting really specific about the decision. See it, size it, talk about what's gonna change as a result of this decision that you're going after. And so there's a whole set of things around specificity and clarity and alignment.

[00:19:06] Susan: Then we move to our second thread, which is around clarity and identifying decision maker and roles. And to be clear, when people hear that they assume hierarchy, and that is not what we mean when we say that we are talking about what's at stake.

[00:19:24] Susan: What does it mean about who should be leading these sets of things? Um, waive the decision. Identify the decision maker and the stakeholders who need to be engaged. And so our second theme is around clarity, around roles.

[00:19:37] Susan: Then we move to our third theme, which is really about planning, the decision making process. People wanna execute once they have the decision, but they haven't thought through, who do we need to move? Who needs to get to work? What do we know about their interest? What's gonna be great about this? What's gonna be hard about this? And how do we think about that before? Then we move to our fourth.

[00:19:56] Susan: Strand, which is around communication and communication and engagement. So people often say, well, we communicated the decision, and I say communication is not the same thing as engagement in teams. They wanna hear the decision, but they also wanna be engaged. And so our fourth thread is around quite honestly, communicating and leading through the decision.

[00:20:18] Susan: In our fifth thread, which goes through everything relationship oriented in general for us at the Olori Network, but certainly around relationships are how do we think about learning? There is so much to be learned, and if teams know that part of the way of operating in a company is that there's an assumption, there's an expectation that every time we move, we leave space for reflection and learning, people can let go a little bit more of perfection. And it didn't happen my way because they know there's gonna be a space for us to see, like, what did we do? What did we learn? How can we apply it again? And it's not actually about blame, it's about the outcome and what we're trying to get done. And it's both about the outcome and how we got to the outcome.

[00:21:01] Dan: And presumably how we learn by observing our decision in the wild. When, when, when we released it.

[00:21:07] Susan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so those are the threads that we are always pulling, which is what's the relationship, what's the framework? How, like not just the what, but the how, and that those things can be done quickly. It can be done quickly. It doesn't have to slow you down. It is actually about being sophisticated, not soft.

[00:21:25] Pia: And I think we, um, we use, uh, Lencioni's number one team. As a, as a, as a, she's a great video, uh, for our listeners to go and check out. 'cause which team is your number one team? And from the decision making perspective, people feel comfortable to make technical decisions based on their, in their functional sphere. They're not very good at, at a, at a senior team at making enterprise decisions, which, as you say, has that relational component and it's a bit messy.

[00:21:58] Pia: It's the ability to not look for a simple technical answer, but to see it actually much more as an adaptive complex problem with multiple strands, and that different perspectives can really add to it in the speed of, we see it as an inconvenience that it's not easy to solve. and, and that's, we are missing, that's our job at that senior level. To have those gnarly problems, to find ways to do it, to tease the answer out. may be quick, may take a long time, but I, you are absolutely spot on. If you don't get the framework and the thinking right, and you don't get the relationship part, you've missed the gold, you've missed the, missed the opportunity.

[00:22:38] Susan: And not only do you miss the opportunity, Pia, what I have observed with teams. You have that first decision that didn't go well. It didn't have an adaptive lens to it. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and iterative decisions that come after, guess what? The team members are carrying baggage from five years ago into the next decision from five days ago.

[00:22:58] Susan: And so all of a sudden you're sitting around the table, we're like, Hey, I thought we were talking about X product, and you realize, oh, you are actually talking about two decisions ago that you haven't released and let go of. And without unconsciously, it's impacting how you're relating to people, how you're willing to move, what skepticism you have, um, and so you're not free to lead as the best version of yourself alongside others.

[00:23:22] Dan: And which of those five season do people struggle with most? 

[00:23:26] Susan: Yeah, I would say first of all, the first one because everyone thinks 

[00:23:29] Dan: Yeah, 

[00:23:30] Susan: we, we all know what we need to solve for, and so people they gotta move on. So like that's our premise that people don't spend enough time on that. But I would say after that, the planning part, the planning, the decision making process, and then figuring out who are the stakeholders who we need to engage.

[00:23:45] Susan: How do we help people understand what their roles are or not? Quite honestly, what do we do if people are not invested in this decision? how do we help people who are not there with us? Are we going to create space for people to be invested in it, to have their questions answered? Is this a situation where it's like, this is a decision if you are not able to get on board, um, under this timeline after these le levels of engagement?

[00:24:09] Susan: We have some choice making. If it's not the type of thing you wanna go after, people don't spend enough time thinking about it, and then they find themselves in the moment. And not that you can plan every single thing, but there are decision making principles that if you slow down just a little bit, it gives you a chance to ask questions around, is this an intentional decision and framework that we have where we are not engaging people?

[00:24:32] Susan: It is a senior executive decision, and there's a reason why that is right, and it is what it is. But there's a set of principles that undergird that, that letting team members even know. These types of decisions are, once we see may be made at the senior level, we wanna explain why that is. We wanna explain how we think about getting data, even though we're not talking, let's say to you, versus these types of decisions.

[00:24:53] Susan: We really want engagement, et cetera. Here's how we think about that. We wanna talk to the clients and the staff members who are closest to the point of the work. Oftentimes it is assumed that people should just know. And the reality is people don't know. Every culture and company is different, principles are different.

[00:25:10] Susan: And so everyone's bringing their background, their experiences, how things work at past companies to bear in a moment and assuming that there's clarity when there is not. And so I would say that planning piece is one that I see people struggling with because it is, under, under invested in because of speed.

[00:25:27] Dan: So can we touch on that speed one? Because We see that a lot of teams, they're under huge pressure to deliver, and that seems to be turning team. It's, it's atomizing both people and tasks, teams and tasks if you like. So everyone's moving things quickly. There's a sort of, you know, not the thoughtful email, but the two, two word mess. I am, um, you know, sort of, and, and it's. It plays into this decision making, doesn't it? Because it's people want to hop over.

[00:26:00] Dan: I'm sure you've seen teams getting frustrated because you, this person's come in here and you're slowing them down and making them spend half a day on this thing that I know the answer to, you know, whatever. But how, how do you help teams to just pause to take the necessary time?

[00:26:17] Susan: Yes, we are big on helping to illuminate the common pitfalls, and so we always say, let us, you wanna move quickly. give me five minutes just to tell you this story ending. So then we start to tell the story of how this is gonna end up. So we're moving too slow. So give me five minutes. And literally I trace through what will happen as they follow their process.

[00:26:40] Susan: And then all of a sudden what we start to do is like, and after I tell this story, what I want you to do is to calculate how much time has been spent in each section. Because what they realize, the story ending has them starting over. They got to the point where they made the decision. People are upset, they feel unclear, they're not getting the outcomes.

[00:26:58] Susan: There's breakdowns between relationships. They have to go back and fix the breakdowns and mediate conversations. They're stressed in the system. They have to go back and repeat the decision, find a new decision, invest the people that they, they have turnover. People are so upset. So literally we walk through like all the things that are happening and then all of the things they have to go back and fix, and how much time was wasted.

[00:27:19] Susan: And then all of a sudden you see people shaking their heads because they have, they've lived that story before. And so what I say to them is, you think that you're speeding, and in reality all of you're doing is you're spending actually more time than if you would've just taken the client on the front end. 

[00:27:34] Pia: And you know, we, again, I think we would sort of come back to it and go, well, the, and they're interacting. In what we call is a, a Tino, a team in name only, then they're not a real team because if they're a real team, then they're able to utilize those relationships, and co-create. Whereas in natural fact, everyone's trying to simplistically solve based on their own technical perspective. 

[00:27:56] Susan: absolutely. Absolutely that, and I think this notion of we're moving too slow is a misconception because in reality, what I'm telling executives and their teams is like, I don't think you should move slow either. What I think, I think you should move disciplined.

[00:28:11] Susan: What I'm saying is, let's move with rigor, let's move with discipline. And sometimes that means that you're gonna move in a sophisticated, slower manner because you're being disciplined in order to get your outcome. And sometimes it actually means that you're gonna move with decisiveness and with no time wasted. So let's move with discipline. And that discipline may require you to slow down.

[00:28:33] Pia: So what do you think the impact will be of AI when we then think that we can outsource decision making to ChatGPT?

[00:28:41] Susan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, um, if you don't have people involved, then perhaps that would be a solution. However, what I often say is you have artificial intelligence and you have relational intelligence, and you need both. And so, um, my big belief is that. AI is going to help us see patterns across decisions.

[00:29:02] Susan: AI will help us much quickly learn from organizations and companies who have experienced what we have at different sizes and scales and what the numbers can look like, and it will help us be a lot more rigorous about how we think about decisions. What it will not solve for is the interconnectivity about how people negotiate their interest once they've gotten a decision, how they move people along, and so. We should understand that there is an interplay between the artificial intelligence and the relational intelligence.

[00:29:33] Pia: Great. Well, that's, that's, I think that's going to be one to watch, isn't it? I'm already seeing things that, that. You can almost tell that AI has spat out the answer yeah. There's a danger of just sort of just diluting our own, our own capacity here to, to think more broadly or taking different perspectives.

[00:29:53] Dan: There's a word for this now, you know, word slopped, you know, have you been word slopped? I dunno if you've seen Susie, Susie O'Neill, our, a guest on the show a few episodes ago just wrote about it, but I've seen it around the place and work, work swapping is when you've, you're a member of a team, you do a job.

[00:30:13] Dan: Use AI and just spit out, as you say, just chuck the AI output without checking it. And on average, people are spending two hours correcting the slop that they've been served by their team member work slopping. I love it. Yes. And we've, we've all seen it. We've all seen it and requires the, the human, and ideally as you say, that human, that relationship intelligence to, to just to, to bridge that gap and to see what good looks like. Yeah,

[00:30:40] Susan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've observed teams already who have been in lots of beautiful ways, been using AI to identify a problem or identify a decision and what the, the anchor points are. But what I have found is when all of the teams are doing it and they start to engage with each other. They start to realize that they don't have the same premise or the same question that they ask ai and that becomes the new problem.

[00:31:04] Susan: They start to then bigger around the this, the, like, what's the question? What's the premise? Um, because they assumed AI would solve that problem, when in reality that work of being able to engage on what we are, what, what are we observing and what's that data cannot be solved by ai even though AI can, you know, maybe give some some boost to it.

[00:31:26] Dan: Susan, I want to ask you about this final point you mentioned of a theme that you're seeing in the world now, prioritization, and it's, it's a, a cousin to decis decision making, isn't it? I guess. But talk, talk to us about that. What are you seeing and how do you help people? Because this seems, this is, seems to be crucial.

[00:31:44] Susan: Absolutely. Well, it goes back, Dan, to the question you and Pia asked me about in terms of like my guilty pleasure and I said reflection and all of those things. Um, if you are doing something big and bold and you're, you're going after. Some very ambitious results and outcomes, the prioritization of volume will not stop.

[00:32:04] Susan: It's one of the beauties and the luxuries of doing something, being involved. And so I often tell my executives, first of all, the volume is not going to change. You do your relationship and your frame around it has to change. Um, and the, the minute that you can reframe prioritization around what is it that I'm trying to get done? What does this mean at any given moment in time, and how do I see this as fluid even when I'm very clear on the thing I'm trying to to go after? The more that you can see the prioritization as a constant task that you're doing,

[00:32:36] Susan: what matters to me at this moment in time? How am I learning and how am I adjusting and how am I leaving time in my prioritization for things that people underestimate? Natural collisions. I wanna connect with Dan and P as people. I wanna pick up the phone around this big, thorny thing versus sinning. I see with some of my executives, paragraph slacks around big strategic questions. I'm like, well, no wonder you all have breakdowns everywhere. You're not talking to each other.

[00:33:05] Susan: You're not, you're not having natural collisions to say, let me pick up the phone. Something that in my mind, I've told myself it's gonna take an hour of time that I don't have that even talking for 15 minutes. We clarified, we saw where we saw the, uh, where we saw similar things. We identified where we might need to spend more time and we got better together faster.

[00:33:24] Susan: And so what I think about prioritization is it is an ongoing. People have to get very clear, not about, not just about the work that needs to be done and prioritized, but about the how the work needs to get done with people. And there needs to be space in the calendar to allow for the natural collisions to allow for, I saw something amazing happen today, and I'm gonna leave Pia a note, a voice note, just simply say like, let me tell you what I saw and why that was important to allow for this is a bad day, Dan, for me. And you know, I sort of snapped on you when you asked that question and it had nothing to do with you. It had everything to do about how I woke up today, and I need to give you a call and acknowledge that and apologize to you versus just, you know, sort of let it go. Like those moments become important alongside doing the

[00:34:13] Susan: work. 

[00:34:14] Dan: interesting. You mentioned voice notes actually, because the, the, after, during and after COVID our relationships with each other. Not only did they become, did we, did they become remote, but they became incredibly formalized into, into teams or Zoom meeting invites. You know, I want to, I want to talk to Susan. I'm gonna send her an invite. You know, that it's just crazy, isn't it? And uh, so I, I, you know, I know we're huge fans of as, as, as you said, those more spontaneous forms of remote, asynchronous connection and they can be very powerful. Yeah. Interesting.

[00:34:50] Dan: So it's a little bit back to the top around the alignment, but how do you help teams to prioritize and to help them to hold that prioritization when often the danger is that things spread? What, how, how does this work in, in teams?

[00:35:05] Susan: One of the first things that we get people to do is to actually get clear on. What is it that we are trying to go after, and if those are the things we're trying to go after, what are the three things that matter about how time is being spent, how time is being spent, what you're focused on.

[00:35:20] Susan: Then we take them through what we call like a time exercise where we say, what does that mean about in the ideal world, how you would be spending your time, what you would be doing? And then we have them go to their calendars and do a time audit. Of what's actually happening, because as we know, what you spend your time actually tells you what your priorities are.

[00:35:39] Susan: And so we will, we'll literally say what does your calendar say? Your priorities are relative to what you said your ideal is, and that creates the opportunity for learning discussion and just what it's gonna mean to close the gap. Absolutely,

[00:35:51] Susan: And you can imagine if you have a SE a C-suite. All doing that exercise and sharing with each other. My calendar says, this is my priority. It's like, well, I'm so glad to know that that's why I can't get time with you. Or that's why this, and explains everything, or you're in a bind. And that bind is because you have 20 priorities, which means no priorities at all. And like, what can we do to force ourselves to streamline, um, and create space for the X factor? But also as I tell my executives. the things will creep back in it's natural. And do you have enough stopping checkpoints to go through this exercise over and over and over again?

[00:36:29] Susan: Once a month, once a week. What did I say was important? How did I spend my time? What changes do I need to immediately make as a forced mechanism for learning an application? It's one of the hardest things to do to confront that, and yet it's one of the, those who do it with a level of discipline. Um, we'll say that they see the difference in outcomes as a result of such, and they see the difference in their energy, um, because they're not moving from thing to thing to thing, but they're very clear on what they're trying to get done, and so they have the energy to engage more robustly with people.

[00:37:03] Dan: Susan, they're your, they're, they're your three key points. We've gone through all of them and gone into them in depth saying thank you so much. Um, as an Olori, what's the baby step? What would you say to what's, you're just our listener out there. As someone who's in a team, leading a team, what's a thing that you would just make sure that they are getting up tomorrow and focusing on?

[00:37:23] Susan: Yes, absolutely. The first thing I would say is over communication is the first step over communication and curiosity. So what I mean by over communication, oftentimes we assume people know what we mean, why we mean it, what data led us to that. And so I often say in the beginning, it's going to almost feel like you're saying too much.

[00:37:43] Susan: But try it out. Try it out. The first thing you can do is say, I'm thinking this. Let me tell you the data that I saw that led me to that. Let me give you three examples of what I saw. I'm gonna put it all out there to help. I'm gonna literally walk you through what led me to that thought, and then I'm gonna stop and ask people to react to it.

[00:38:01] Susan: What do you, what, what have you seen? What's your reaction to that? What have you seen? What different data do you have? Um, especially if you have a similar or different conclusion. So the first thing is that the micro thoughts matter a ton, and we don't do enough to make that more visible and public as a part of clarity and alignment.

[00:38:20] Susan: Then the second thing I would say is we don't do enough of stopping and saying, what's your reaction to that? How do you see it differently? And so the curiosity to actually want people to poke holes and what you have and the importance of that and getting to stronger thoughts, um, matters.

[00:38:39] Pia: and that will help to facilitate the collective decision-making and thinking of the team. You don't have to know the answers, you just gotta know some good questions to tease it out.

[00:38:49] Susan: And it also brings out the best in people because I do believe all people have ideas. Um, they all have ideas, they have all perspectives. They have data. How you weight them might look differently. However they do have them. And if you seek, as they always say, like seek to find the sense.

[00:39:04] Susan: Right sense in people's nonsense. Seek to find the perspective that you might be missing. There's a lot of wisdom in there.

[00:39:11] Dan: And I really like that idea of even when, when you are over communicating, then show the curiosity on the other side. It's not a question of just ICS down, someone's that actually Right. Okay. I've said, said my piece several times. What's your perspective on this? I think that's, um, wonderful and, and it's part of, comes back to that alignment, doesn't it?

[00:39:29] Susan: Comes back to alignment and this communication engagement piece, Dan, in terms of like, it's not just about communicating, it's about engaging on that

[00:39:36] Dan: Yeah, absolutely. Perfect, perfect. Wonderful. Um, Susan, take us out with your media recommendation. What has entertained, educated, Well, you are invited. No one's ever done it before, but, uh, we've had all, we have had music recommended, but no one's yet sung it, but yeah. What's your, um, what's your media recommendation, susan? For our 

[00:39:57] Susan: I would say there's, Amy Edmondson did a TED Talk about how to turn a group of strangers into a team. And I think for teams who are thinking about, we all have different perspectives and backgrounds, how do we come together to do something important to together, it's, it's, it's really informative, um, as well as just being together in society More broadly, how do a group, a group of strangers, come together? To find commonality. I think there's so much to be learned there.

[00:40:26] Dan: but s it brings, brings our, brings our conversation to a close. But thank you so much for everything you shared and for the work you do. Clearly bringing, not just performance, but also a chance of joy to the people you work with. So, um, so thank you very much for sharing that with us today.

[00:40:41] Susan: Thank you for having me with you today. 

[00:40:47] Pia: There was a instance over the weekend, uh, here in Australia where one of the large telcos had an outage, and um, it ran for a period of time, I think, before people were alerted. And the tragic consequence of that was that three people lost their lives as a result of it because the emergency, um, system didn't work.

[00:41:09] Pia: So, It made me think about, you know, the exec team, and it made me think about, the three things that Susan's talked about here. Alignment, clarity, prioritization and decision making. So not only in a crisis situation, but how on earth in today's day and age, an outage of that situation happened, and, and you didn't have all the.

[00:41:35] Pia: Tech backups, et cetera, to, you

[00:41:37] Pia: know, what's that? A, uh, you know, decision making around resources. I'm hypothesizing 'cause I do not know, but what, what has created that? Is it a misalignment because, you know, an exec team is focusing on a different direction and not focusing on, on the operational upkeep of its network.

[00:41:56] Pia: I, I dunno, but it just puts it, that's a, very tough. Public failure but those three things apply. They, they apply. You've got extraordinary talent. But if you haven't got the relational dynamics to bring out the, best decision making, the strongest alignment that cascades into the organization and prioritization of what really matters.

[00:42:22] Pia: Always what delivers shareholder return? That

[00:42:26] Pia: conversation 

[00:42:26] Dan: uh, and that, that's, that's exactly the point, isn't it? That we're under these, um, delivering quarterly results and there's a endless push and pace and, um, taking the time to create those conditions for success and create alignment is where, was really interesting is what Susan said.

[00:42:45] Dan: 'cause you're sort of, you know, that the sort of pace is, is valued and of course that is important. But just there, there's a really important, and I love some of the words that Susan used, Rather than just being fast, you know, don't rather over speed be sophisticated. Isn't that a great word? I just, that really jumped out for me.

[00:43:02] Dan: And instead of speed, try rigor. You know, I want, that's what, that's what she's looking to see. And this is, they're really good tests to say, actually, folks, we don't need to be hasty. That's just be sophisticated and rigorous. And then the, the rest will follow. I think the other piece that jumped out for me was. And we were talking earlier, weren't we all fair about, a company doing development in high performing teams. And you look at their syllabus of what they, what they're training, and it's actually about how to be a team player or how to be a team leader. It's individual competence. So those things, alignment, decision making, prioritization, it's about the relationship.

[00:43:39] Dan: So it's not about how do I. Align myself. How do I make decisions? How do I prioritize? It's a, we in all of those positions, you know, it's, that's it, and that's built on these relationships. And then you get a more, you know, in the case of that, uh, outage, you get a bigger view. Your scan is wider. You are hearing those peripheral voices that might actually alert you to the fact that we don't have a decent backup here or there, rather than moving fast and those people fall away. It's obviously not an easy job. Easy to point to people who've failed. 

[00:44:14] Pia: Easy not to be in that seat and to find fault, 

[00:44:16] Dan: So easy to find fault, but, but I think there is exactly, that's, that's not what we're trying to do here, but there are some things that teams can definitely. Think about 

[00:44:25] Pia: My final bit is, is that we, none of us have access to all, all, all the information, but the team can have access to the information from different perspectives. And, and, uh, and the leadership thing here is like, how do, how do you access your team's accessibility into that information to have that view?

[00:44:46] Pia: Because we all have biases, we all have, you know, strengths. We all have different shape brains and all the different part of it. But you've gotta think, okay, there's, there's a, there's, there's lateral information and there's, and there's detail. And how do I see it? How, how do I get that information to inform me? Um, and there's a big slice of humble pie to actually go, I dunno it all. 

[00:45:08] Dan: yeah, you think you see it all because you're seeing all from your point of view,

[00:45:12] Pia: Of course looks 

[00:45:13] Pia: perfectly clear. 

[00:45:14] Dan: so yeah, exactly. I'm seeing everything, but actually there's another side of this elephant. I, and this is really when, If you cut the sort of jargon, this is what diversity's about, isn't it? It's this person who has a different view is not a pain in the ass. They. They could be the savior, they could have, they could be seeing the thing in, in a, in a different way. And how do you bring that into your thinking? Yeah, no, absolutely.

[00:45:35] Dan: Spot on. So yeah, back to this, back to the joys of, uh, of the challenges, but also the, the joyous outcomes of really good teamwork. But that is it for this episode. We, not me, as supported by Squadify squad, helps any team to build engagement and drive performance. You can find show notes where you're listening@andatSquadify.net.

[00:45:55] Dan: If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. We are Not Me, as produced by Mark Steadman. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:46:04] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.