“Help: my team doesn’t feel connected any more”
How can any of us build a more effective team?
Owen Eastwood is one of the world’s most in demand performance coaches, with a focus on team culture & leading. Owen has worked with some of the most successful sporting sides in the world. He also works with corporate teams wrestling with similar themes.
Follow Owen on LinkedIn
Last year I talked to Owen about his work on belonging and identity but I wanted to pick his brains on the biggest challenge for modern leaders – how to build a stronger team.
Owen talks me through his step-by-step approach to building better teams – starting with the toughest starter question that most teams never tackle.
takeaways
- Determine whether a team is necessary for the desired outcome
- Clearly define roles and expectations within the team
- Recruit talented individuals who can contribute to the team’s success
- Establish effective communication channels within the team
- Consider the challenges of being part of multiple teams in the corporate world Individuals have a choice in shaping the team’s identity and should be selfless and committed to the team’s purpose and desired outcome.
- A high-performing team is one where individuals consistently perform at their best and have a culture of excellence.
- The environment plays a crucial role in enabling or disabling team success, and teams should create an environment that fosters innovation and energizes individuals.
- Teams should regularly reflect on their environment and identify and eliminate factors that hinder performance.
For a full transcript see the website.
Transcript
Bruce
Owen, thank you so much for joining me again. Thank you. I want to really sort of tap into the interest that was created by the previous discussion we had, specifically in the sort of the realm of teams. guess, you know, before we jump into questions, worth having an opportunity for you to update. Who have you been working with in the past few months and what does work look like for you right now?
Owen
This year I’ve mainly been working in sport actually. Normally I had a good split between sport and corporate for whatever reason this year, quite a lot of sport. So worked with a cricket team in Pakistan, which was quite an incredible experience. In particular, they reshaped their coaching staff to have an equal male and female split. And this is one of the most conservative parts of Pakistan, the Multan Sultans. And so they needed a new cultural framework really in order to…
Owen
to make that work and it was quite a beautiful experience to be honest. The team did well. also been involved in the IPL and cricket as well with the Royal Challengers of Bangalore. So that was fun being part of that little adventure. I’m working with the Premier League team this year and it’s got a long -term project and it’s definitely a different pace and a different level of media scrutiny than yesterday.
Bruce
Is it public which team it is?
Owen
It’s Chelsea Football Club.
Bruce
Okay, right, it’s a job to be done there. Okay, okay.
Owen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that’s really quite interesting. And it’s a big challenge for me. It’s not a natural environment necessarily for me. But I’m really looking forward to see, know, there’s an opportunity to influence them from a teaming point of view and a cultural point of view. And the Ryder Cup, the golf tournament between the United States and Europe takes place in New York next year. Luke Donald’s remained captain.
Bruce
Thank you.
Owen
And therefore we’ve got a lot more planning time than we had for Rome last year, which we sort of won against the odds. So I’m really enjoying that. There’s no pressure really at the moment. We’re just planning, thinking, scenario testing, connecting with our players and that’s a lot of fun. So this is a bit of a sporty year. No doubt next year I’ll pivot back towards my original career, which is more in the corporate space.
Bruce
I guess, the questions that I’m keen to pose you and the conversation I’m keen to have is kind of probably what goes through your head as you start any of those projects or walk into any of those projects is, you know, how do you set about trying to create a sense of team and with any group of individuals? And I think in our previous discussion, one of the things that you so brilliantly articulated is that when you’re given…
the whole canvas to work with and creating this sense of belonging, which places people into a historical context, into a bigger picture really helps. I guess I’m interested in something which is probably of relevance to a lot of our listeners, which is, you know, if you’re never given that big canvas or that big palette, or you’re not given the time to do that, the components of starting to build a team. so, you know, firstly, maybe
Maybe it’s too broad a question, but what you consider to be the the traits of a good team. What do you look for in a good team?
Owen
I do this a lot. often I’m invited into different environments and asked to do some form of evaluation on how a particular team is doing. That’s in the corporate space and as well as the sports space. So the things I would look for is first of all, let’s keep this simple because I do think teaming has become so over complicated.
I think let’s just simplify the whole thing. And also, I’m not going to share anything that I don’t think is pretty much universally applicable. I don’t want anyone listening to think, OK, well, that sounds fantastic when you’re working with these so -called high -performing organizations, but what about reality? Everything I’m talking about, to me, is equally applicable. So what we’re starting with, aren’t we, is a group of people. There is a fundamental question that often gets missed, and that is, do we actually need to be a team?
And teaming sounds really cool, doesn’t it? It sounds like, of course, we want to be a team. Like, that’s what you’re supposed to be. But actually, I always just pause. And let’s just actually create a little bit of a quiet moment to reflect on this. Do we need to be a team or not? Because we can spend a lot of energy and time wasted if we get the answer to that incorrect. So I’ll give you an example.
When I was a lawyer for 15 years, we were not a team. I was in the department of 110 lawyers. We were not a team. And we did not need to be a team. Each of us had our own individual clients and our own individual cases. We were, as a partner, you were supported by junior lawyers and there was a degree of teamwork on a particular case. But basically, certainly the partnership group
We just needed to hit our number. Everyone was given a number and my friend, you hit that number. And when we aggregate everybody hitting their number, we achieve our collective goal. That was it. I did not need to coordinate myself or work with or team with those other partners in my department. We just needed to go and do our job. And we would have wasted a lot of time.
Owen
getting a teaming consultant in as to how the partnership group should have worked as a team when we were never a team. And I can contrast that. had a two -year sabbatical at Saatchi and Saatchi, which I really, really enjoyed. And they actually worked as a real team. Because what would happen is a brief would come in to one part of the agency from a client. That would then be shared with the strategy team. I remember this as of 10 years ago, but I remember it quite well.
The strategy team then would do their analytics and contextual stuff. OK, they did a great job. And then I’d invite in the creatives. Then they would brief the creatives. But everyone’s in the room. And then you’ve got your account managers who are part. So all these people are in the room all the time. And they’re listening to it. And they are reliant. And they are interdependent. The account manager is not going to be successful if the strategist gets it wrong or the creatives get it wrong. So they all have to be on the same page. And they are highly coordinated in order to create this piece of art for a client. So in that case, yes, they need to be able to work as a team. So that’d be my starting point is just to ask that threshold question, do we really need to be a team?
Bruce
And the teams that call you in, are they ever comfortable in saying we don’t need to be a team?
Owen
You know, they often it’s, it’s how I frame this. They assume they should be a team and they feel a little bit guilty for not being a team or a very good team. And I have, especially in the corporate space, I mean, sport is different teams for obviously is teaming, but in a corporate space, I’ve had great sessions with teams where we’ve actually got to the point of you can relax. You need to be a good leadership group and we can talk about that, but you don’t need to be a team. You don’t need to be doing all these things and then they move on from there. So it’s just an open question. It shouldn’t be weighted. It’s just like, let’s be objective about it, work through that point, because often it is missed and people get themselves in a bit of a pickle.
Bruce
I don’t know enough about golf to go into the nuances, but couldn’t someone who’s a participant in the Ryder Cup say, listen, we’re just a group of individuals under one umbrella and we don’t need to behave as a team. Couldn’t you conceivably say that about, I guess there are some, some pairs games, aren’t there? But couldn’t you conceivably say that, look, our goal is to be high performance individuals under an umbrella.
Owen
No, I think there are some sports where that’s completely correct. Golf can be, the Ryder Cup not so much because the first two days of competition are exclusively in pairs and they are mixed up a lot. And then the final, it’s only the final day, the final round where they play as singles. So there does actually need to be quite a degree of teaming. Also not just the obvious of hitting the ball and all that. People need to be able to put the team before themselves in that environment because
Owen
Often you’re disappointed you don’t get to be selected for the first two days in the way that you would like to. You might not be paired with the right person. We need people to have team -based behaviors and mindset around accepting some disappointment and not being selfish. But that’s a great example. And again, I don’t go in there and say, let’s be like the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. We just actually just quietly work through, like, do we need to be a team? If so, what type of team do we need to be?
And it is very different, it’s very contextual.
Bruce
Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so I guess, you know, if my question was sort of when you’re sitting out to start a, create a team, what do you start with? That’s very evidently the first question. How’d you take it from there? So a team have said to you, okay, yes, we are a team and we want to sort of, we want to create something. Is that then when you start sort of trying to define what the identity of that group is and how you make people feel connected to that or?
What would be your next step of that exercise?
Owen
No, I wouldn’t go there. we start with the actual first question really is what is expected of this group of people? What is the desired outcome? And I hope they hope it doesn’t sound lame because it’s actually like such a critical question. I mean, what actually is expected of us by the wider system? And specifically, what is the desired outcome of this group of people working together? And
To me, that has two important components. One is, what is our strategy? What is our game plan as a collective? What are we trying to achieve and how are we going to do that? But equally importantly, every individual in that team needs to understand what their role is in order to contribute to the achievement of that desired outcome. you know this, sometimes and quite often these things are really quite poorly defined.
Owen
And in sports teams, for example, I remember memorably a team I worked with, a South African cricket team, who were world number one at the time. We had a session before a big tournament. And we were world number one. Everything was wonderful. Very confident, awesome group of players. And I convinced the coaches, let’s just check in with how clear.
everybody is on their own role. We know our game plan, how we want to start the game, how we want to play in the middle and how we want to finish games. We know all that, but does everyone know their own role? And we got all the players just to stand up, just, you know, very relaxed. And we had some good humor and banter alongside it, but we actually got everybody to explain what their role was in the team. And this is a world number one team. 50 % of the players completely ill -defined their role compared to what the coaches believe their role was.
And that was because we’re winning, it’s going pretty well, the game plan’s repeated on a daily basis, we sort of know what the strategy is. But actually, there hadn’t been enough intimate one -on -one conversations with people to explain their precise role. And when you’re winning, you sort of can ignore all that. It’s like when you’re lawyering well, when everyone’s making lots of money, no one’s sort of going to probably have too many one -on -ones with you. But actually, that is critical. The third…
thing I’d say too about setting up a team is that, and you can’t get around this, is that whatever the desired outcome is, you need to have the talent that’s capable of delivering on it. Okay. It’s nice to sort of maybe, you know, fudge that a bit, but that is the brutal reality. And as you get going to the high performing organizations, that becomes the truth very, very sharply, but it is with any team. mean, it is with me and my group of mates who might want to do a working bee at the cricket club on Sunday, have we actually got the capability to build a shed? I I certainly don’t. My best mate in the village doesn’t. we’d have to, you know, we’ve got to ask that question. Can we actually capable of doing this piece of work together? I did something a few years ago, I should revisit it. But, you know, in my sort of very fortunate experience to
the coach in a diverse range of environments. I’ve asked leaders, just tell me, because I’m not trained in this. I’m a lawyer really, but just tell me what are the things that actually make all the difference to winning? You can just tell me. And that’s a simple question. And they came back with a very, very strong thing. This is probably about 20 coaches from all around the world. And the first thing they said is, if you want to win,
So forget sport, just from a competitive point of view, if you want to win, the single most important factor is the level of talent you have. The second most important thing, and they actually told me, that was something like, you know, 40 % of success comes down to the talent. is what, this is my just like very amateur and non -scientific survey. And then the next bit was the most important thing after the talent capability was the environment.
Owen
Not just the nice in the clouds cultural stuff, but just the practical hard -nosed reality of the day -to -day environment. I think they put that down to about 25%. Then the third thing they said was strategy. It was interesting. And that was like 15 % or whatever. And then there was a degree of other factors, including things outside our control, which came up to fill the pie chart out. And…
I, when I was a lawyer, I found the single most difficult thing to do was to recruit well. And I’ll be honest with you, it’s still a mystery to me how you do that well. So, but it is really, really the game in many respects. So we can do a lot of cool things when we get the people together, but we do have to be honest and challenge ourselves. Like have we got the talent that’s capable of delivering the outcome that we’ve been set? Cause if we haven’t we’re gonna have to revisit what we’re doing.
Bruce
You raised a really interesting point along the way there as well, that you, when you’re talking about the Indian team, you said that, because I guess it appeared to me that because group elements had been well covered, there was an oversight in the individual specifics hadn’t been adequately dealt with. And it felt, it’s a bit like that model, team versus team task individual. It felt like…
because the team element had been focused on, the individual hadn’t necessarily been balanced proportionately. And I think that raises a really interesting point that, know, obliquely to get a good performing team, focusing on an individual at times might be more important than focusing on the team. That’s what I took from what you said there.
Owen
Yeah, I I wrote a book called Belonging, as you know. And but a point I want to make here is that from a performance point of view, that is part of the equation. But the most critical things are just clarity around what is my role? What is my desired contribution? What are the things that you feel that I’m good at? What do I need to get better at? How are you going to support me doing those things? How am I going to grow during this little adventure we’re going on together? Like those are the, you can’t not have those conversations, but have a nice belonging ritual and then we’ve got a great team.
Okay. And, you know, sometimes managers in particular, including in sport, just think they’re too busy to be having one -on -ones like that. And I just think that’s a fundamental mistake. You’ve got to pace yourself where, yes, in the course of the rough and tumble, you will be too busy for one -on -one. So that’s why in your planning for a season and for a financial year or whatever it is, you make sure you’ve got time diarized early.
to make sure that everyone is good to go. And often that is neglected and then we get a little bit, well, people aren’t performing, so we either try and get rid of them and replace them or it all becomes a bit of a mess. A lot of this stuff could have been corrected early on when we got into that initial forming stage of the team.
Bruce
When you’re arriving and you’re looking at teams that maybe they’ve got some degree of dysfunction or they’re not performing to the level that maybe their talent would justify. How are the patterns of communication a part of the underlying issue there? Is communication the vital part that determines whether a team succeeds or is there something else beyond that?
Owen
I think there is things beyond that. People are under a lot of pressure, they? And they want and feel they have to deliver now. Sometimes actually that is not the case. For example, if a manager comes into a dysfunctional organization and maybe a dysfunctional department, the idea that we’re going to turn this around immediately because you’ve arrived and in the next 12 months, we’ve reset high KPIs.
People are delusional. I mean, that does happen all the time and it’s not realistic, but it is hard to push against it. But what we really need if we’re going to be built for success is to have a timeframe about what we’re capable of achieving and what are the various steps along the way. And like with a sports team, I mentioned the Premier League team I’m working with, you you’ve got to be thinking in three and four year timeframe.
to win that competition. Just because we’ve got new people and we’re hyped up and we really want to go and be successful immediately, that isn’t necessarily your reality of where you are. So all the teams I would work with, again, before we get into the rough and tumble of it, we have to just calmly have a working through session around where are we right now? Let’s be honest with that. What is the gap between where we really are right now and what we want to be?
And what is a timeframe that is realistic, as much data backed as possible? What’s realistic where we get there? And if we can get there in the next six months or 12 months, happy days. But often that is absolutely not the case. And then that requires this higher up stakeholders and organization to understand this rather than us being in fear of them. we need to explain this to you.
We’re all on the same page. We’re all going in the same direction, but we really do need to talk about what’s a realistic time frame in order to hit those type of targets. Because where we are now, we’ve actually got to re -recruit in critical areas. That’s going to be time lags involved in that. This is not some linear process. So yeah, I do think that is really important to get very real about when we will be successful.
Bruce
It’s the challenge in the corporate world that at times people are members of multiple teams. And so they often find that these multiple demands upon them, in the corporate world, especially, you operate in such complexity that you might be part of a board team yourself, or you might be a part of your own team. Do you lead that team? Are you part of that team? That you’re part of multiple teams that the…
the complexity of the job often prevents the clarity of what some of the stuff you’ve talked about.
Owen
That’s a really good question. I’m used to people being in multiple teams, both in the corporate space and in the sports space. Often in sport with England football team I worked with for many years, people coming from clubs. So that’s not really unique as we’re in multiple teams. So I don’t see that as an obstacle for… Sorry.
Bruce
But you, you’re, yeah, but you’re in, you’re in different teams at different times, aren’t you? You know, in, in sports, it’s very clear time on time off. Whereas in the corporate world, in the world of business, we can find ourselves being on the same team simultaneously, you know, in meeting or we, there’s a degree more complexity. I’m not meaning to diminish the, the adjacency to sport, but I just wonder if that creates one of the issues of people’s sense of belonging in teams.
Owen
Well, that’s a very fair point. I completely accept that. So in a corporate context, and again, I would have been in multiple teams or was in multiple teams in my corporate career as well. So can relate to your question. So for me, let’s just step back a little bit. Whenever you are in a particular team at a particular point in time,
that team needs to have its own little sense of identity. Even if you are only a team that meets once a month or something, you still actually have an identity. What I mean by that is when you come into that environment, you have expectations, you have a perception of the leader, you have a perception of your teammates, you have a perception of whether you’re very good or not, you have a perception of whether this is important or not. So whatever the team is, it’s…
For me, the leader needs to take ownership of what is the identity of this team. And I remember a distinct example, actually, where I was presented with this exact scenario. And this team was one where people were part of multiple other teams. This team only came together, I think it was only once a month or so. Didn’t have a lot of energy and it didn’t have a lot of presence. By that I mean, when people were there, they were thinking about something else.
So we actually called it out. And we said, when this team is together, we have an election to make. And if you can excuse my language, we gave them an option. This can be a shit experience. Or this could be a great experience. So what are we talking about? This is not something that’s going to happen to you. This is something that we’re going to collectively decide.
is what our identity is. So on the one hand, we can be a team of pretty much cliques. We just hang out with the people that we know quite well, and we make no effort to build relationships with anyone else. Or we could build career long, potentially new relationships with other people. We have an election between those two things. We have a choice when we come here that we’ve sort of fixed in what we know and what we do. And we’ll try and roll it out here as best we can.
Owen
We’re not really coming here looking to grow or improve or really learn anything particularly. OK? And this is real. It’s not BS. This is real. We have to make a decision. We can come here and decide, I’m going to be selfish here. I’m not going to be an a -hole, but I’m going to be selfish in that I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do. And I’m not going to do anything that’s going to be uncomfortable for me. Or we can buy into the actual purpose of the team. can decide that whatever the team needs in order to fulfill its role.
Owen
and the desired outcome, I’ll do it. We can come into this environment and say, you know what? I’m going to be my best version of myself and the other teams in this organization. Because I sort of feel more comfortable and they know me and I’ve been there longer or whatever. I’m going to be a bit of a poor version of myself here. Like I know and I feel a bad about it, but I can live with it. I’m going to turn up, go through the motions. Or I could come in here and actually be quite world class as a teammate for everyone in this room.
And ultimately being in this team could be one of the crappier experiences of my whole career, let alone here. Or we have an election that this could be one of the best memories of my working life. And we’ve laid it down to this group and said, you decide. Seriously, you decide. And we got them, there’s a wall and we said, the shit experience of that end, the great experience at this end, place yourself where you think it is right now.
Right. And they were all down at like three. Yeah, well, they were, you know, because if you say, what do want to be, they’re all going to get a great experience. But we asked them, where do you think this team is right now? What’s your identity today? And they all went to about, if you think about great experience of 10 and the opposite of zero, they’re all about three. And so then we got some conversations. We just said, OK, talk to it. Why are you standing at three? And then because you’ve described a lot of how I feel when I walk on the door here. I’m not energized, not really motivated, and I’m not present. Why is that?
Owen
And it was just an incredibly healthy conversation, which from what I understand, they had quite a transformative effect on that group of people. So, and that’s a group of people who only meet once a month. So I’m not into like systemic excuses for, you know, we haven’t got any energy and mojo or whatever. Every single group of people that comes together, including you and your mates in the pub has an identity. And what we want to do is be explicit and aligned around what it could be.
Bruce
And that’s a group of people running things.
Owen
And then we’re going to unlock a good experience.
Bruce
think that’s especially relevant because a lot of people who might find themselves as part of a team now, which may be through the way that they’re working week falls, this team is exclusively remote. we, any of us who do any of our work remote can know that there are versions of ourselves. And exactly as you’ve articulated there, there’s the fully energized, fully focused version that’s on it. And then there’s the version who just craftily is just getting a couple of emails done.
you’re on deadline for something. And so actually it’s a very relevant framework, what you’ve described there, where people might be far more conscious than they let on, that there are different versions of them and knowing that their contribution to different teams is something that they’re choosing to do is probably a good way for the person running that team or stakeholders in that team to think about it.
Owen
I think this also comes back to another key point for me when I answer your question about what makes a good team. A good team to me has a benchmark of 8 .5 out of 10. What the hell am I talking about? What I mean by that is…
Every day, we do our very best to turn up. Never perfect, we understand that. But we try and deliver in terms of the quality of our work, our attitude, our preparation, all of these things at an 8 .5, the way we connect with each other. We don’t allow people to exist in operating at five or six out of 10 or certainly lower than that.
And I actually define a world -class team. I don’t care what realm it is. It’s a group of people who can collectively work at a benchmark of 8 .5 on a day -in, day -out basis. And that includes days where I turn up at 6 out of 10 feeling quite crap. But we’ve got a type of culture where I can articulate that, and then you can help raise me up. Or that we collectively don’t diminish what we’re doing because one or two people are tired or…
or whatever’s going on. That’s what a high performing team is for me, is that we just have a high standard, a high benchmark we set. We’re all lined up for it. We’ve got a safe environment where we can challenge each other if we’re below 8 .5. And a different way of putting that is that for you, Bruce, and me, 8 .5 and above is the best version of us.
And so I think there’s a lot of conceit in the way people talk about high performing teams and high performance coaches. You know, I’m one. But I do think a lot of it is quite conceited. I actually think it’s very, very simple. It’s not exclusive. High performance to me is simply that you and I together in a team can present ourselves at 8 .5 every day.
Owen
Okay. And in some of the sports teams, we even get into people’s sleep patterns because that all affects their ability to turn up the next day at Harlequins Rugby Club, done some really cool studies and helping our young players. Our young players are having two hours less sleep a night on average than our older players. And that is affecting their energy levels, but also their ability to learn. They’re not getting enough REM sleep. So we will bring in protocols to try and help them get to 8 .5. Okay. So it’s not just about, you know,the piece of work that you do. It’s about how you prepare yourself, the energy you bring, your attitude, all these things. So that’s a part of it. When I’m working with a team, a good team to me, and probably a great team, is somewhat a group of people who are able to perform that type of level on a consistent day in, day out basis, not an erratic.
Owen
I think the humor thing is something you’re big on and I couldn’t agree more. The only thing I’d say about that is that, again, from a hormonal point of view, it does reduce tension in people when there’s humour one. Number two, you get a glimpse of people’s real personalities when there’s an environment where people can be humorous.
You they open the door a little bit on who they are and that helps connection. And I think the third thing is humor to me is a creative endeavor. So when there’s humor in an environment, that’s a positive sign to me, actually, that we’re in the right mental state and the right hormonal state where people will be able to be creative and be themselves. So anyway, you’ve more than covered all that.
Bruce
Yeah. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because humor alone isn’t enough, but humor along the way can help lubricate you get there. It’s like, you know, if your goal was turn up and turn up and get everyone laughing, you’re not going to achieve what you think you’re going to achieve. Humor alone isn’t enough.
Owen
I think something interesting happening in cricket actually is, you know, the last few years has been racial discrimination, claims, investigations, findings, emanating out of Yorkshire, but, you know, across the whole sport, they put investigators into all the teams. And one of the feedback I got from a few cricket players was that banter and, you know, that’s a long game, a long six. Banter is a big part of cricket. Taking the mickey out of each other is a big part of it.
People are now quite terrified that, and you know, one team like had three Kiwis in it. Now you should be able to take the mickey out of the three Kiwis. Shouldn’t you really? Well, maybe you can’t, but people are now getting a bit nervous about doing stuff like that. It might end up in the front pages of things. So it’s something that it’s all very well to get, you know, external sort of experts on discrimination to come into cricket teams and tell them, you know, investigate them, but you.
Owen
They don’t quite understand the actual dynamic of the environment and how humor, through banter and other things, can play a big, role.
Bruce
Owen, when we’re thinking about these things, when we’re thinking about team dynamics, we often sort of start giving ourselves a list of things that we should start doing. But let’s invert it just a little. What are the things that people should stop doing?
Owen
I’ll go back to that little amateurish survey that I did when I asked proper leaders who have had success what are the key components of winning. I said the name? I remember, say that again, sorry? all right. If you’re simple like me, you need to try and find simple sources in that one. So we remember what they said and that was that talent is actually the overwhelming most important factor in whether you succeed or not. Secondly, they talked about the environment and significantly they put that above strategy, which is actually something that I’ve believed my whole life and as a performance coach, that’s what I focus on. So in order to stop, what are the things we want to stop? I would start with looking at our environment.
Remember when we spoke last time, shared that insight from the English Institute of Sport meta study that it’s 70 % of human behavior is determined by the environment you’re in at the time. And with pausing just to take that in again, 70 % of behavior determined by the environment you’re in at the time. So in order to know what to stop, to me there aren’t, yeah, there’s not a checklist. What I do when I go into an environment is ask them two questions and try and also pick up signals around these two questions.
Owen
First question about the environment is what in our environment is actually enabling us to be successful in executing our strategy? And what in our environment is disabling that from happening? And once we have a proper consideration of that, then we stop the things that are disabling it. I’m going to give you an example here. A few years ago, I was asked to work with a leadership group in an investment bank. They’d just done a fantastic McKinsey’s
strategic review and they’d come up with a brand new strategy for the investment bank and the number one bucket on the New strategy was, you you’ll be shocked to hear innovation Okay, so now we’ve got a game plan and the first bucket of the game plan is we need to be more innovative Wonderful. So and my job as a performance coach I need to then check the environment Is it enabling or disabling that to happen? And I remember talking to some traders
down on the floor and some salespeople around innovation. I remember them explaining to me that they needed to go through 12 levels of permission in order to get a new type of deal done. And they said to me, why would I do that? I think I might be a little bit better just milking the cow that I’ve got in front of me right now. And so I went back to the leadership group and just explained that, that your environment is actually disabling your strategy.
So these are the things you need to stop this overwhelming bureaucracy internally self -imposed around innovating. So that’s an example. I would not have known that when I walk in the door, but by just, know, sort of sitting there quietly talking to people observing, then you pick out the disciples. And similarly with energy, think about our environment. What are the things that are energizing people in our environment? And what are the things that are de -energizing?
Owen
And then obviously the things we want to stop are the things that are de -energizing people. And that can be the whole myriad of things can’t it? But often it is a bit confused. They’re not actually clear exactly on what the hell we’re doing here. What’s expected of them and around their own role. That’s often the case, but there are other factors as leadership style can fall into that. So again, no checklist, but if 70 % of behavior is determined by your environment, we need to get to grips with what the real environment actually is.not what the leader says it is or what it’s on a PowerPoint presentation. And those things that are disabling and de -energizing, that’s what we’re going to
Bruce
It’s a really interesting exercise for someone to deconstruct actually what the realities of their environment is. You know, in the corporate world, a lot of people’s environment is spending the whole week immersed in electronic communication, whether it’s through a screen or whether it’s through, you know, typing emails. And we often sort of brush it aside. think, no, no, that’s, that’s not the environment of the job. That’s just us getting some of the hygiene of the job done.
And it’s why we often witness people feeling completely disconnected from their colleagues or disconnected from work because the actual environment they’re in is quite a way different from the idealized version that they probably imagined.
Owen
And that’s where sometimes an external person coming in can really help create some clarity and a new perspective on where you really are. It takes a little bit of courage maybe to invite them, but when I get invited and that’s really what they’re looking for, that they’ve come to the point where they need some objectivity about where we are right now. So, I think stopping things, we need to do a bit of work before we jump to those conclusions.
Bruce
I love it. So I guess, you know, I didn’t want to take too much of your time today, but there’s a couple of more things I’ve sort of, keen to understand really. I guess, you know, often when I think about teams, I make the mistake then of jumping into the quite transactional, the tactical elements, thinking about the humor in the group or thinking about how the way that we can lubricate communication between us. seems like there’s something more substantial that exists beyond that though. It’s people understanding their role in that group.
understanding their contribution for the group, understanding their expectations upon them. A far more substantial than is everyone having fun together and having a laugh together. Am I sort of reading that right here?
Owen
There you are. I get asked by people from time to time, could I come and buddy with you and watch how you coach for a day in one of these environments? And I normally can’t because obviously the trust and sensitivity of the team wouldn’t allow it. But they would probably be a bit underwhelmed. They’d probably be looking for these big belonging rituals and all this emotion and sitting in circles and all this. And I really can because obviously the trust and sensitivity of the team wouldn’t let me.We only do a little bit of that. What they would actually find is we’re just going back to this again. How clear are we on the game plan? How clear are we? Are we evolving it as we go? Does each individual understand their role in this, the role now, and also the aspirational role we would like them to fulfill when they develop? All of this is it. That is it. And one other takeaway from my…
in terms of good teams from my corporate experience as a lawyer was that for a bright group of people, something we were really dumb about, and I was a litigation lawyer, was that we would often have projects, if you like, or litigation, which went for two, three, four years. And the moment that it finished, we just went to the next one. We never had a debrief where we all sat around
Owen
with the whole hierarchy and just like what the hell did we just do? What have we been through? And most importantly, what the hell did we learn in order to be better next time? We never ever did that. And actually, if I took you into a sports team, you would see that pretty much universally they’re really, really good at that. They’re really, really good at getting the data and analytics and creating a space for what just happened. What can we learn from that? How do we get better from that?
And that’s a hallmark of a good team. If I go into an environment, I’m looking, have they actually got the ability to learn as they go? And just because you have bright people does not mean that you have that ability.
Bruce
Does the data there, the benefit that you’ve got data there help remove some of the subjectivity from it? It depersonalizes it because rather than I’m disappointed with what happened there, you can point to something that feels objective and substantiated.
Owen
Definitely. The more objectivity, the less objectivity, the better the review will be, of course. And in my lawyering example, I would think of, you know, during the course of, say, a three year litigation, there’s multiple times where you can negotiate an exit. So people make offers to you, you either reject them or accept them, whatever. The idea of not reviewing those decisions when you get to the end of the whole thing with the benefit of hindsight just seems very flawed to me.
So yes, I think there is a way, you want to look in objective ways of trying to understand what you’ve been through and what you’ve learned. But often there is an objective outcome. And in a creative setting, maybe the client is extremely happy with what you provided. And we have a great review as to why they’re so happy and what the process was that got us to the outcome. And then how we can make that even better next time or maintain that awesome feedback. Or maybe they weren’t very happy about it. underwhelmed, then we need to review that. So that’s an objective marker. Ultimately, the client’s score gives you out of 10 for the piece of work you’ve produced. yeah, try and be objective about it, not too subjective. Yep.
Bruce
This is helpful for me because I think quite often when we see high performing teams, we can look at a sense that they’re all in it together or a sense of sort of collegiate bonding, some sort of cohesion between them. And we can think, that’s the thing that’s got them there. Where I remember vividly, I’ve worked in a place that was built on very poor foundations, but there was a sense of connection amongst people, even though we saw the results being chaotic.
That sense of cohesion strikes me as a nice thing that adds an extra level on the top, but you need the substance below it. You need the proper framework. People knowing precisely what their role is, top talent being applied in a high performance way. And it’s only afterwards that cohesion can help you transcend to another level. That’s what I’m reading from here in the sense that…
in a Jürgen Klopp style way, if you’re reading of Jürgen Klopp, he’s turning up and hugging the boys, you are not going to achieve the Jürgen Klopp results because you actually need a very clear plan below that. And that Bonhomie that goes on top is something that elevates you, but doesn’t create it. Is that what I’m reading right?
Owen
Yeah, I agree with you. The fundamentals need to be in place for a team to achieve its full potential. There are plenty of very talented individuals who are part of a team or a group who underperform collectively and individually, right? There’s probably more of that than the other. I think Harvard Business Review talks about 90 % of teams being dysfunctional. OK, so that is the norm, probably, is you’ve got talented groups of people who underperform. So.
just to cast any aspersions or get rid of any aspersions here. This is not about having amazing bonding experiences and having great connection and cohesion alone. We need to be clear on what the hell we’re trying to do. We need to the talent who can deliver on that. We need that clear plan as to how we’re going to get to that desired outcome, both in terms of the collective strategy and also individuals need to know their role.
We need to be able to have something in our culture and our environment that allows us to learn as we go. And things like psychological safety are pretty critical in order to enable that. We need to have a really high benchmark or line about what type of identity we’re going to have. Is this going to be a place basically where the best version of you needs to turn up consistently? Or is this a place where we actually will tolerate a pretty average or poor version of you? All of these things need to be addressed.
And alongside that, once you’ve got all those in place, the other foundations, once you’ve got those in place, then we really want to bond this group of people together in powerful way. We know that everyone has a need to belong, that their anxiety levels are massively reduced when they feel they actually belong there and are included, rather than they don’t really belong there and they feel excluded. So why would we want people operating with that hormonal profile? That’s how you can get the best performance. So we’re going to be doing those type of things. We have…
We know that human beings get very energized, get high dopamine levels. We’re not told this is actually the story of who we are and what we’re trying to do. So we need to have good storytelling as we go. But again, these things are not a replacement for clarity around what we’ve covered in the conversation. So they all come together. It shouldn’t be a choice between these things. If we’re trying to build a really successful, a great team, all of these things need to be there.
Bruce
Owen we’re out of time. I’m so grateful for the attentive way that you’ve tried to answer all of these questions. I’m so grateful for you taking the time and best of luck with your endeavors this year.
Owen
Well, so grateful for you to invite me back. can’t believe that this is like my favorite pod. So I feel very privileged.
