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

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee. And We have two fantastic guests in the studio with us this morning. And to kick off season five, not four, not three, not two, not one, but five.

[00:00:27] Dan: amazing. I can't believe we've lasted this long, but we have. But it's a, it's a pleasure to introduce our lovely guests, people who will know them from a previous, uh, from this. From season four actually. So Amy Riley, um, and Stephan Vina both joining us from the US and I'll just quickly ask them each to introduce themselves to remind our listeners where they're from and what they're up to.

[00:00:50] Amy, do you wanna get started? 

[00:00:51] Amy: Certainly, I am so glad to be back on. We, not me. Uh, I'm Amy Riley. I'm from Chicago, Illinois, and, uh, I am a keynote speaker, uh, number one international selling best author, and a leadership development consultant and coach working with leaders at all.

[00:01:15] Dan: Great. Thank you and welcome back. Welcome 

[00:01:17] Pia: Awesome. Great to have you back, 

[00:01:18] Emmy. 

[00:01:18] Dan: Yeah, it really is. Stephan. Hi there. Thank you for coming back.

[00:01:22] Stephan: Thanks for having me again. I really. It's, uh, great to be here and I'm hailing from Canada. Yes, I know North America is basically distinct into itself based on our geographic regions. But I have to admit, I am north, north of the 49th parallel in Canada. even though we do a lot of work in the United States, , can you tell by my accent?

[00:01:44] I'm not sure. I think of many Americans can, can detect it.

[00:01:47] Dan: Occasional. The occasional 

[00:01:48] vowel, I think. 

[00:01:49] But I actually, yeah, but 

[00:01:50] Stephan: I mask it reasonably well, hopefully a . Uh, so, uh, I'm the CEO of new me.com. That was, uh, my my original, uh, foray into business and coaching. And it's a large network of, of, uh, Coaches and we do coaching for lots of different organizations. And I, I have to mention it because our original slogan and our original business plan was we as the new me.

[00:02:16] So it was very close

[00:02:17] to the title of your podcast. So we, as the new me, was our original pod, original slogan, and that was also, Why we came up with the name New Me. 

[00:02:27] Dan: Thank you Stephan. I actually had forgotten that you were a Canadian resident there, so apologies. North America beaming into us from both sides of the the, uh, For ninth Parallel. So thanks for being with us. And look, what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a review of the show. We want to really do this in order to look forward to the coming year.

[00:02:46] So it's January, 2023. Um, we want to really set everyone up for success in these slightly, still slightly strange times. So we're gonna start with a few predictions for the year. And just to get us started, I thought, Pia, why don't you kick us off with your predictions and then we'll, we'll lead in and see what Amy and Stephan, uh, have to say.

[00:03:04] Pia: and, and it's, I think what I like about this too is that we have, we have a lot of continents covered here because we've got a, the Australian and Dan is, is beaming in from Europe, uh, and you guys in North America, so predictions. So I think there's probably, there's still a fair amount of instability, geopolitical. I do wonder on a sort of macro level if there's something else. You know, we've had lots of climatic challenges. We've had lots of, you know, political challenges. We are having economic challenges, but, you know, and then we've just come off the back of a, of a major health, global health challenge with Covid. The cynic in me is going, what else is there that we haven't? So there's a resilient theme that we need to have going forward. Almost like being prepared for the, you know, prepare for the unexpected. 

[00:03:59] Um, so there's that part, but I think the other, the other sort of more on a micro level is looking after your talent. That's what I predict will become really important, your people. And I think that going local, Will become a key theme, which you know is around who are the people around you, who do you interact with, either on a virtualized, a hybrid, or a face-to-face. But I think the, the, the, the social fabric of humans and what humans can do together will become more and more important, um, to affect change, to build resilience, to support each other, and reconnect. With what's really important.

[00:04:48] Amy: What you said about looking after your talent does resonate with me. Uh, when you all asked me to think about predictions, I thought about leadership and culture. I feel unqualified to comment on the global economy or what exactly is gonna happen with interest rates and stuff from here.

[00:05:08] Unfortunately, I think we need more of this and I'm predicting it's going to happen. More acceptance of flexibility. That this is what's needed. It's what employees are going to expect, and I think we still have some pockets of resistance and that will shift to acceptance. 

[00:05:31] Which then I think leads into what you were talking about Pia, you know, looking after your talent. If we embrace and we recognize that we're in this flexible way of working now, then I think I'd love to see employers take more responsibility for wellbeing and everyone taking responsibility for inclusivity and belonging, right? Like not only the leader looking after talent and who are they and what are their skills and how do we wanna tap into them? But you and I as members of the same team looking at that.

[00:06:10] Pia: I really agree with that, Amy. I think there's something about putting human back in and really focusing on humans, and the value of humans because I think we could, um, particularly with ai, which is gonna be a big theme across technology, we could underutilize the importance of humans. You can't, you can't replace that. So we need to find the real value proposition for us, all of what that means and put focus on onto that.

[00:06:39] Amy: Oh yeah. Can we stop worrying about how many days we're gonna spend inside the brick and mortar walls And let's instead like focus on how are we gonna connect as human beings, wherever that might be.

[00:06:50] Stephan: I am gonna respectfully, uh, challenge that perspective, uh, to some degree here, and here's why. Uh, so I spend a fair amount of time in. Uh, tech circles and interacting with other CEO tech CEOs. And, um, when asked and prompted to look at predictions for 2023, I will, you know, full disclosure, I went and sought, uh, professor Galloway if, I don't know if either or any of you are familiar with pro prof galloway.com and he makes his annual predictions 

[00:07:23] Pia: the d Scott, the dawg.

[00:07:27] Stephan: Yeah, exactly. So I looked at his predictions cuz he's always super tapped into tech and, and I wanted to see what he had to say about predictions for 2023 looking at tech. And one of those predictions is that there'll be an onslaught of, of people being let go in the world of tech. 

[00:07:46] Cuz what happened during Covid is we had this massive acceleration of some technology, not all technology, but certainly some, and where basically five years worth of demand just got crammed into the next 12 months. And so companies were hiring left, right, and center valuations were going through the roof. They, tech tech had loads of cash and they were spending it. Hiring people like crazy.

[00:08:12] And what massive event occurred at the end of 22, 2022 was basically, uh, you know, good old Elon Musk and the whole Twitter sphere thing, and what did he do right? He let go of, uh, 80%, something like that, of, of his staff. And the lights are still on, right? Twitter is still operating to this day, and sure, maybe their valuation has tanked, but, uh, I think a lot of other CEOs are gonna look at that and go, Hmm. Yeah, we, we were running pretty hot there and hiring people straight outta university are quite junior people and paying them six figure salaries. And, um, now that we're coming back down to earth, the thing that we can do is we can just cut a whole bunch of salaries and our companies are gonna be that much more profitable for the year.

[00:09:01] So there's gonna be a, I think, immense amount of pressure. And what, what is that doing that's flooding the market with available talent and that's moving or shifting? Uh, I think, um, the control, I guess from. People who are in a rare supply to the companies. Again, because companies were scrambling for talent when everyone and anyone was getting a six figure job, right?

[00:09:28] It was so, and we faced it too. We have developers that suddenly we're knocking on our door. Uh, I'm not gonna show up tomorrow unless you give us like a 50% raise kind of thing. Like no kidding, uh, salaries were going through the roof. It was crazy. And that's not happening anymore. And so maybe company and I could see a lot of companies who are skeptical about having people working remotely and so on and hybrid and all that, and they're just gonna say, you know what?

[00:09:53] You gotta come back to work. I don't. I'm cutting your check at the end of the day and you're gonna need to come into work for better or worse. Uh, I'm not, I'm not saying that's a good thing. In fact, I'm saying that's largely perhaps a bad thing, but I can see a lot of companies insisting on coming back to work more regularly. Maybe not a hundred percent, but 60% or something like that. 

[00:10:15] Dan: it's, it's, um, I was very glad to hear your sort of countervailing view, actually, Stephan. I hadn't done the, um, Uh, done all the maths on it, but I did, I could see in my predictions as I was thinking about it, that there's likely to be, you can see people insisting some sectors as well, financial services, there are quite a lot of people saying, come back to the office. And, and it, it may be that these different forces that are acting, as you say, there's a flood of talent out in the marketplace, that's gonna shift the balance of power back to the employer, which, I don't think is necessarily a healthy thing overall, but I, it'll be interesting, I think overall to see how this pans out. It could be different by different sectors. So tech sector, you've talked about, financial services might be different. Pharma is a sector that I know quite well. I think that they probably will be trying to attract staff from one to another through flexible working practices. 

[00:11:05] So it's gonna be fascinating, I think that you sort of set out those different forces they're acting, and I don't think it's gonna be monolithic what happens across the labor market. Um, and of course how teams operate. But um, there'll be some people being brought back to the office. Others will be driving for flexibility in order to attract talent. 

[00:11:24] But I think overall, one of the things we've been saying is, And, and we said you, I think a few of us have said it on on already on this, this show, which is, it is to the where is one thing, the how, how you work together is, has got to be worked on. And that's, that's the key thing. I think people are gonna start to really, to have to figure out. Um, as an aside, while I'm on product, my predictions, I'm interested to see what happens to offices, office space, but also what happens in communities with a lot more people inevitably working back in their own communities, see what happens to those and possibly a sort of a groundswell of more community activity. So I think we've got some interesting times ahead. I'm overall optimistic, I must say. I hope Pia's sideswipe doesn't come along something new. Um, but I'm overall optimistic for the year that we'll have a, well, I hope a settling year.

[00:12:15] Stephan: When you say communities, Dan, are you referring to like, my physical community? So if I'm working from home, you're talking about the community that I live in, or are you talking about online communities or both? Or

[00:12:27] Dan: I was talking about I think the, the, on the, the home, the community where communities where we live, I think that we've, uh, spent a few decades or centuries even, you're leaving those communities to go and join other people in a, in a workplace. Whereas I'm really interested to see what happens now when there's more informal working home, working, informal working spaces in, in communities, and how that will create a new collaboration at that local level. Potentially. You meet people in these different spaces, um, and do and work and collaborate with them.

[00:12:59] Stephan: The fact that large organizations are laying people off. I think that supports that perspective, because a lot of folks who are going to find themselves without a job are gonna turn to pursuits or, uh, start collaborating with their fellow neighbors and other people that they are suddenly finding themselves working with in some sort of co-working space.

[00:13:21] So, um, I can definitely see a proliferation of, of, uh, new startups and new innovation and new companies emerging, especially because I think a lot of companies that let folks go. Those folks, or even during Covid rather, when there wasn't in-person working conditions and everyone was working from home, a lot of people moved from the big cities into more of their suburbs. Uh, and, and so those places have a lot of talent that are suddenly gonna find themselves with time on their hands. And so hopefully that talent will start to generate new possibilities within these communities. And so, um, I think that's an exciting development.

[00:14:00] Amy: I think there's also some folks who decided during the pandemic, oh, maybe I don't need to work 50, 60 hour weeks anymore. Uh, maybe I can be part of this gig economy. Right? Be that consultant. Choose where and when and, and how. I, I work with clients and partners.

[00:14:17] Pia: And I think that actually relates to some of the guests that we had in season four. So, you talked about community, Dan, Nick Hudson was all about building that community with the, with the pushup challenge and what started out something that was really small and Doug Shapiro talked about the importance of place and how, you know, how, how you're talking about what's gonna happen to traditional offices. We talked a lot about the beige space and how that probably isn't gonna be, that that's not gonna be compelling for people to bring them back into work.

[00:14:51] And then Bar Foster talked about, get outside, be more creative in the way that you are engaging with work. Don't take it for granted that it's a long commute and a dull place to work and a and a long commute. It's, it's a bit like all the, all the perspectives that we have, the, of the whole work experience of being thrown up into the air.

[00:15:19] Dan: Yes, indeed. I'm really hoping that the, um, Stephan's shot across the bows is, doesn't come entirely true to, to fruition because I think we, we have the opportunity as humans, as, um, leaders to create a more f more flexible working, um, in some way and not lose these lessons that we've, we've been taught. So, uh, but a lot of, uh, uh, yeah, a lot of interesting times ahead.

[00:15:44] So why don't we move into, um, just seeing what we could do about these, um, these new conditions we're facing into? So, um, Amy and Stephan, we, we, I'm sure you've got a couple of tips for us. What, what would you advise people to do going into this year based on that, that future, which is not all that clear as we can see from our discussion, but what would you, what would you advise people to do, Amy? What's, um, what's your top tip for people right now?

[00:16:09] Amy: We're already talking about it here, right? This big discussion about where are you working, what's the hybrid formula? Um, you know, how is it challenging to have meetings where some are in person and some people are dialing in remotely.

[00:16:25] My tip is everybody, every person in the organization focus on your impact on the culture. So many are worried about, oh, we're not coming into the same building. You know, we don't have that communal feeling. We're losing our culture. Culture's really in the connections between us as people. So if you can get everybody on your team, everybody in your group, everybody in your organization focusing on how do I impact culture? When I have this interaction and I ping a colleague for something, right? How am I impacting the culture in that moment? Am I, am I lifting the group up or am I doing something different? Let's all be keepers of the culture.

[00:17:18] Dan: the, there was a theme. I think that's a great one, Amy. And I think a theme came through from a few of our guests around being really deliberate. Um, now is sort of, there seemed to be, I thought there was a very interesting se season because we explore this a few times where you go into the office, you, you are in an office, you leave the office. When you've got so many options available to you, you have to be much more deliberate. And this is a deliberate act as well, isn't to say, how can I positively impact the culture today? And, um, when we had Juliet on the show talking about the LSE research into hybrid working.

[00:17:52] Create, focus on relationships with then, was there number one finding. Just think about how you don't get drawn into that task, uh, task only world, but actually feel, think about relationships. And that's, that's a foundation, isn't it, for that culture you're talking about. As you said, the culture is the relationships in a way between us that we can have even virtually.

[00:18:14] Stephan: Going back again to the pressures, I think that we all likely feel in some extent in our workplaces with different, um, work situations, some remote, some hybrid, et cetera. Well, our big focus is on psychological safety, like how do you build psychological safety and how do you foster psychological safety? And I see culture and psychological safety. Very closely interconnected. Uh, they're different in one way, in that culture is kind of this large amorphous thing. I think often can be considered large and amorphous. Like the organization has a culture and how do you change it? It's like a weather system. And then psychological safety is a team based contract. So that's, that's like what's happening in the local region. You know, here's the temperature in our city kind of thing. So each team has a, uh, Its own weather patterns, I guess you can say. So that's one way to think about it. 

[00:19:07] And, and the way I see culture is what, what is culture? It's, it's really just a set of norms. It's a set of. Guiding norms that say, this is how you behave in this environment. And so that's, I think, a little extra layer to think about with, in terms of how you as an individual are responsible for cultures by setting and creating norms within your team. So how is it that you regularly interact? And you need to be particularly mindful of that, especially when you have people working remotely.

[00:19:37] And so it's things like setting up open office times, or, uh, being able to facilitate really challenging discussions. Like maybe you have a strategy where you say, okay, um, at the end of every meeting, let's all put our black hats on. Like, why is this idea, or why is this plan the worst idea in the world? Or the worst plan ever, right? Like, you wanna start to instill these new habits within your work environment and everybody can be responsible for those. Everybody can. Those ideas and suggestions for how to create a solid culture or how to create a great psychologically safe environment within your team.

[00:20:14] Pia: And I, I would add to that, Stephan, that sometimes we have self-limiting beliefs, and one of those beliefs is that being together face-to-face is going to be much better than having a virtualized relationship, and I think that's a, that's a belief that actually needs to be really properly challenged. We need to flip this and think about how as, as you both talked about, how you build this together, not where you actually are.

[00:20:44] We've got a bit fixated about where we are as if that limits us to how we can relate. Whereas in actual fact, if we sort of become a little bit more macro around this and think about it in terms of, you know, not where, but how? And then how do we utilize all the tools around us to build those relationships. I think that's gonna be really key. It's much really liberating.

[00:21:10] Then yes, you're going to see people, you always probably will see people, but there's probably been an awful lot of wasted meetings where people have been sitting together and it hasn't really been of any great use and actually a huge amount of costs on a multiple levels. So I think, I think we ought to debunk that one and actually give our, give ourselves some freedom around that.

[00:21:33] Dan: It, it's quite amusing really to think that, um, you know, 10 years ago you hear what people said about the office environment. That was a nightmare. We always use US meetings, total waste of time, you know, all these things. People interrupting me and now people are sort of suddenly. There, there's a big, quite big group of people saying, come back to the office, it's amazing. And, and, uh, you know, so it, it's, it's clearly not, um, it, it's, it's not quite everything. It's, it's cracked up to be. And I think again, we ha it's about being really deliberate and, um, and be, as Amy said, really focusing on how we're gonna build that culture wherever we are.

[00:22:10] Amy: Being overt about our process, right? Each, each group, each two people in a working relationship. What's working, what's not working? Oh, you just asked me for that thing. What's the timeline on that? When do you need it? Am I thinking about the scope correctly? I mean, let's just dig in on process and like you've been saying, talk about the how, how, how is the best way to go about this?

[00:22:35] Dan: Actually, Amy, I, there was a really good point. Um, in season four, Tania Noakes, the, um, climbing guide and instructor. One of the things she said that she does when she's guiding clients is to be, to be overt and she'll say, right. Right now I'm doing this thing. You know what people are saying? Why might be thinking, why are we waiting? Well, I'm sorting out the ropes because in the minute we're gonna do whatever she was. I thought that was a real bit of gold from her actually, to be, to be very, um, to just state, not just do things, but to state what you're doing and make it clear what the why.

[00:23:08] Pia: Something else that I thought was interesting too when Adam Verducci was talking about in New Jersey, um, with the police force, they never are actually physically together. So they are in patrol cars as a team. And yet they may come to an incident together, but what they get really good at is listening for the tone and inflection of the voice of the person they're speaking to, to understand where they're at. So they don't, they don't have any visual cues, they just have verbal cues. But that, you know, that over the radio is a really ki click important way.

[00:23:52] And I think, you know, Andy Chaz talked about this curiosity. We, it, it's a skill that if we don't become more interested in people and really listening, you know, we then just drive the agenda fr from ourselves and that becomes a me not a we opportunity, you know? And I think we've just to, to make, to, to build that culture, to build that psychological safety, to build that sense of teamwork, we gotta really attune our listening and the nature of the questions that we're asking.

[00:24:28] Stephan: Well, that really rings true for me, Pia, because in addition to my regular day job, I'm a volunteer firefighter. And so I am sometimes on the radio communicating with my, you know, with my colleagues. And, uh, one of the things that I've learned over the years is, um, we send out one truck and then a second truck and a third truck as people arrive to the fire hall, because remember, this is a volunteer department. We're not career firefighters. We're not sitting in the hall waiting for the fire alarm to go off. Instead, we're responding from our homes or wherever it, we happen to be in the community. And the most telling. Account is when the first truck arrives on scene, they have to communicate to the dispatch about what's going on. Okay? Dispatch 'em at a two car vehicle incident. And the tone tells us in the second or third trucks just how severe things are immediately. it's palpable in that particular situation. 

[00:25:26] And, um, and that's, so I, I find that really fascinating. The words we say matter and how we say them often is more important because let me tell you, under duress, when you're trying to communicate on the radio, you'll sometimes the words will not come out right, and yet we can read between the lines to kind of understand, okay, this is a really severe incident or not.

[00:25:49] Dan: Um, Stephan, keep the floor for a minute. What's, um, what's your, um, tip for, for the coming year? Where, where would you direct people to deal with this changing environment? 

[00:25:59] Stephan: One of the, uh, one of the other predictions, I'm gonna go to another prediction, which I think we all agreed to and we touched on even already to some extent is, uh, the power of AI. And I think AI is gonna be coming down the pipe it already has, and there's gonna be more of it. And really, AI is just symbolic for technology advancements. And we're seeing with AI, how you have AI that's just accelerating. Wow. It's amazing what some of the AI can do, and many listeners have probably already checked out the ChatGPT, GPT3, uh, bot and just how sophisticated it is. You give a very minimal instructions and it can spew out, uh, articles and written like m and m and all kinds of strange and weird things.

[00:26:43] So, um, all that is symbolic for the level and the degree of change that we're all having to face. And psychological safety is important because it's the, it's the means for teams to learn. And so the tip that I would have is, is really focusing on how your team is learning and sharing information and making sure that there's open channels and open pathways for information to be freely exchanged, uh, between everyone. And that includes, and probably even more important than ever, it's mistakes. Cuz every single mistake is an opportunity for learning. And so you. Really try to understand in your work environment how mistakes are, you wanna des destigmatize mistakes and reframe them not as a bad thing, but reframe them as a learning opportunity and a mistake is only a mistake if we don't learn from it.

[00:27:41] And so, we see that in multiple different environments Where for the, the classic story that Amy Edmondson. The Harvard prof who's really popularizing psych safety is uh, the nurse who's sitting there and hesitant to call the doctor because, on the chart are what deemed to be or seem to be the wrong dose of the wrong medicines to be administered to this patient. And rather than pick up the phone, they just follow the chart because in previous instances, that nurse or a different nurse gets reamed out for calling the doctor at two in the morning and they're ch and you know, why are you challenging me? I'm the doctor. I know what I'm doing. Just follow the charts. Do as you're told. Stay in your lane. That kind of thing. You know, that's a case where, where mistakes are covered up and um, it's a potentially life or death situation. 

[00:28:34] So when, you, you need to, if you're a manager, if you're a team lead, you need to be asking what mistakes are being covered up in your work environment. Cuz almost surely there are, because we have such a, an aversion to making mistakes, it's a very natural, uh, uh, reaction that we have internally to not expose mistakes that we're making. So it's something that you wanna look closely at.

[00:28:57] Dan: if you superimpose that on, uh, an environment where there's a lot of labor available where people might feel their jobs are precarious, their employment is precarious, that can have an adverse effect, can't it? At exactly the wrong moment for the organization. People can come even more careful about covering up mistakes or just not sharing them for learning.

[00:29:17] Pia: And I, I would, I would contest. Ai. so for me it's around, particularly this year, we have to make a choice for hu for our human sustainability about is AI the right choice? And is it, is it a good choice. And what I mean by that is we do have a human connection where we have reverence and respect for both human triumphs and talents and achievements that we, we connect and align with in each other to go, wow, that's a brilliant swimmer. That's an extraordinary artist. That's a, you know, that's a brilliant speaker. And there's something around the way that we create, we relate as humanity. When we defer that. To technology. We are doing something substantial to our human system. So we've really gotta be aware of what we do, if we make that choice, and whether we're doing it for good. That's my, my sense. 

[00:30:24] When I heard that, you know, uh, artistic design as a, uh, you know, as a a, as an industry is in for disruption because AI will replace all artistic capability. and you or I could create something that looks amazing through AI, you are taking an element of humanness away. Yes, we get the outcome, but we actually could have a huge expense.

[00:30:53] Dan: I feel it's slightly different. I think that AI gives us the PO could free us up to be more human. A, a lot of the things we get involved with as humans are not using our humanity now. If we've been quite industrialized, I think that AI could take that away from us and give us more chance for expression. And I'm personally quite interested to see what a bot will come up with in terms of art. I'll be also interested to see what hu more humans will come up to come up with. But, um, your, I suppose if one takes away from the other, um, we might be in, we might be in trouble, but I, I think, I feel it might be additive, um, potentially if we is, but, but I think your point, uh, I, I feel Pia is well made.

[00:31:32] We've gotta guard our humanity and actually double down on it. We, we've got to re and, and, and I think we've got the chance to do that. In the, in the backdrop of all this technology is that we are humans and we do connect. Um, and we've got a chance to really make sure we do so. 

[00:31:49] Couple more tips, I think we have time for. Amy make it a shoot. Quick fire one. What's one, one more tip and then we'll come to you, Stephan, and we'll, um, yeah, what, what, what else have you got for us for our, uh, listener to take into the year?

[00:32:03] Amy: I think maybe this one helps us double down on humanity. It's elementary. It's not new. We've heard it before. Uh, but I think it's more important than ever, is for everyone to be leveraging each other's strengths. And I mean, what we're good at and what we're interested in and passionate about. And again, every team member talking to their colleagues about, What are you good at? What are you interested in? How can we find ways to leverage that, so that we've got more people around us who are lit up and working in ways that they know provide value and that they care about?

[00:32:50] Dan: I, I love that, Amy. I, I think it's, you know, I've had a sort of mixed relationship with this whole strength thing over my time, but, but I do really love that idea of really understanding, you know, of, of really understanding what.

[00:33:04] What fires people up. Sometimes things have to be done. But what, where does your, where do your strengths line, how can you use a team to really, really tap into that? I think that's where teams really come together, and it makes me think of, um, the diversity you have in a team, but also inclusion. And we had a great conversation with Marsha Ramroop, about inclusion, which really for me was, was hugely, well, I, I learned so much, um, from her. And, and the, the, the, the, the opportunity not just to have diversity, but actually how diverse teams themselves can be actually less functional than a homogeneous team, what you've got. But if you have inclusion, then you have the highest performing team.

[00:33:45] And I think that that plays into that strength thing.

[00:33:47] How do you bring diversity together? Allow people to play their strengths, by having an inclusive, uh, approach to things. And Marsha was just, just so strong on that point, really. I think so pragmatic and science-based, it really, really brings, makes me think of that. Your point about strengths is so well made in that, in that light, I think.

[00:34:06] Stephan: What I found so fascinating about, uh, the psychological safety assessment, when I first learned about it, it, it being a seven question survey. So very simple. Two of the questions really relate to that. The first is, people on this team always accept others for being different. So you're acknowledged for being different is that, that's the first one. And the second one is, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilized by members of this team.

[00:34:32] So it's precisely what Amy just suggested, and this is part of psychological safety. So if you wanna have a psychologically safe environment, you gotta. this is exactly what you're saying, right? You gotta connect with the people on your team so you know what their talents are, you know what they're good at, and they're not necessarily just like, Oh, you're a ca so you must be good at doing the books. No. Like you need to understand how they're uniquely composed as how their brain works, almost so that you can understand how, uh, what kind of tasks they're particularly good at completing and so on.

[00:35:07] And I think, uh, to add one more point around the whole inclusivity piece, uh, I think if you take inclusivity to the next level, you get to that place of belonging, right? Where people not only feel included, but they feel like, oh, I belong here. That's, I think, the ultimate goal.

[00:35:23] Dan: And your, um, your, your tip for us for, for, for people to take into the year?

[00:35:28] Stephan: Yeah. Well, I guess, uh, Amy spoke earlier about process, like understanding your team process. And I wanna add, uh, one piece, which I think we've really emphasized a lot in our training and our, in the work that we do, which is dealing with in the moment challenging, uh, conversations or conflict even.

[00:35:48] Cuz often I think, especially in high performance teams, when you have differing points of view, and you have, not everybody is in agreement. How do you deal with that? How do you deal with that in the moment? And what we recommend and the piece of advice I'd, I'd offer for everybody, this tip, is to take on the bystand position.

[00:36:10] So what is, if, if you could think about the game, you know, is the conversation people are in on the field, they're playing the game, they're having the conversation. What you need to do is put yourself in the, in the stands, looking down on the field, just noticing the process. So, you know, it's like that old adage. You don't wanna work in your business, you wanna work on your business. Same thing. You don't wanna work in the team, you wanna work on the team. That kind of concept. So you wanna do that by putting yourself in the, in the stands and go, I'm noticing that we're stuck because of blah. Or you know, name what it is that you're seeing on the playing field that is getting the team stuck and just name it. And by naming it, it allows everybody to go, oh yeah. 

[00:36:54] For example, you might say, I'm noticing that Jim and Nancy are on opposite ends of the point of perspective, and you're not gonna come to an agreement. So how are we gonna handle this as a team? What can we do going forward? Because I'm just seeing this is like a ping pong match. I'm just going back and forth and we're not getting anywhere. Notice how, I'm not accusing anybody of anything. I'm not pointing the finger. I'm just saying it looks to me like these two people have opposing points of view. How are we gonna resolve it? And throw in a question to the floor? 

[00:37:22] So that's what we call reflecting process. I'm up in the grand stance. I'm looking down on the field and I'm reflecting back what I see in that moment, when there's tension, when there's conflict, when there's difficulty.

[00:37:35] Pia: I think, I think the doubling down on humanity is such an important part. I think that we underestimate how quickly things change and evolve and the external circumstances that we've all been involved in and how these human skills can quickly at amplify. 

[00:37:53] So if I used a tiny example, I used to get Christmas cards. I think I got one this year. And actually it got to the point where we didn't get Christmas cards, I didn't send any. And, i, although you sent an email or a message, it didn't have the reverence that it did.

[00:38:16] Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but God, I would probably, if we all had an AI app that could just find your friends in your contacts and send them a personalized Christmas card, we'd probably all go for it.

[00:38:30] So the point is, is that, Don't underestimate the hard work that we probably just need to invest in relationships. Cuz if we don't, we dehumanize ourselves and then we put things in a very different and potentially difficult situation. 

[00:38:49] From what I'm seeing this year is we've got choice points. We either lean in towards our relationships or we lean out. But if we lean out, we're gonna have much harder journey back to, to win those back. Cuz once we start to lose those threads, we feel that we sometimes can't be bothered to put the effort in to bring them back. 

[00:39:14] Dan: I don't think so. But Pia, I'm sorry I didn't send you a Christmas card. Um, I'll, I'll

[00:39:19] Pia: No, don't worry about it. 

[00:39:20] Dan: It's fine. 

[00:39:21] Pia: Mine too.

[00:39:22] Dan: in the post. It's in the post. Don't worry, don't worry. No good. Yeah. Sound point. And Again, I think a lot of the season was around deliberate choices and acting deliberately a little bit like Amy's, um, point about process and Stephan as well on the, the, that last tip about taking that bystander role. It's, it's really being conscious about our choices and, and, and we, I guess maybe we could say that what we're, what we are all saying is whatever you think is the future is coming, let humanity come into those choices. Put that first and then see what else, what else you need. Because it, it, it, there are forces to take us the other way, are they not? And um, and we have to sort of hold each other together.

[00:40:06] So, um, I think that we have had a wonderful, wonderful session. Lots. Lots of action there, and we've managed to sort of talk about the, uh, the last season. But Amy and Stephan, you've brought such wisdom, um, to our discussion and I really think that if people take your tips away, they will have whatever the year holds, they will have a fantastic 12 months ahead. So thank you, Amy. Thank you, Stephan. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It's been great to have you.

[00:40:36] Amy: Thank you. It was great to be part of the conversation.

[00:40:39] Stephan: Thank you very much. Yeah, it was fun.

[00:40:41] Dan: We hope to have you back on the show very soon, but that is it for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at squadify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. 

[00:40:51] If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. And also, please give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. If you'd like to contribute to the show, you can do so now at wenotmepod@gmail.com. Or you can also leave a voice note. Just find the link in the show notes. 

[00:41:09] We Not Me, is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye for me.

[00:41:16] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.