How To Build Winning Teams - A Trilogy With James Scouller

Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Game of Teams podcast series with me, your host, Tara Nolan. It's my aim over this series of conversations to really illuminate what it is the game on teams and help you, whether you're a member or a leader, get massive traction on the things that matter most. I hope you enjoy the listen. So welcome to this, the next episode on the Game of Teams podcast with me, your host, Tara Nolan. And I'm delighted to be sitting opposite James Schooler, who has agreed to, very kindly agreed to come on and talk to me about his passion for teams and importantly his trilogy, his work, how to build winning teams again and again. So, James, you're really welcome to the show.

Speaker B: I'm pleased to be here.

Speaker A: Oh, I'm delighted to get into this conversation. So let me just share a few words about you. So you spent 15 years researching and writing your trilogy of books, how to build winning teams. You were a CEO for three international companies before you founded your own coaching company, the Schooler partnership, in 2004. And I know that you coach leaders and their teams today. James, you're also the author of the three levels of leadership, how to develop your leadership presence, know how and skill. You're the holder of a postgraduate, two postgraduate coaching qualifications and you trained in applied psychology at the UK Institute of Psychosynthesis. In addition, you hold a 4th dan black belt in aikido and you live in London with your wife Trish. And I'm genuinely delighted to speak to you today about your work. So how would you like to fill in the dots for me? Because I know I've left yawning gaps in terms of that introduction.

Speaker B: Okay, so let me say, uh, sort of who I am and um, how I got here. Here's how I would describe who I am. I'd say, yes, I'm an ex CEO. That's an important part of my identity, who's now a professional coach and an author who works with individual business leaders and their teams. And I firmly believe that if they individuals or teams are going to grow, maybe even transform, but certainly move their growth along, the thing they really need to do above all is address their, uh, unnoticed psychological obstacles. Because I found through my own work in the corporate world and then my own training and psychological work as a coach and then coaching for 20 years, that people's biggest obstacles are not to do with technical stuff and know how stuff, it's more to do with psychological blocks. And I've learned that it doesn't really matter who you are if you're a Business founder, a CEO, a department head, team leader, whatever. You absolutely can grasp this stuff. You can act on it. And if you do, you will not only improve your results, your teams and your companies, but you'll make a difference to your work experience. So my job really is to help these people see this stuff, guide them through it and act on it. Whether it's through my books or whether it's through coaching, it doesn't really matter. And where I've come from, I've been working. It's quite shocking to say this. I've been working now for nearly 48 years. 28, 29 years in industry. The last 11 as a CEO, as you said, of three different companies, international companies. And then 20 years ago I decided to end all that and go private, Set up as a coach, train as a coach, build a business from scratch. And then along the way I wrote a book on leadership. Uh, it's really a, uh, self help psychological manual for leaders. And then this year, after way over a decade, finally released the trilogy on how to build winning teams. That's my story in a can.

Speaker A: Well, it's a fantastic story. And I tell you, when I did receive the copies of your book, I was actually suffering from COVID and I was trapped in a prison that is my bed. And for a week and I digested your book, your first book in a day. And I remember writing back to you and you were amazed that I read it in a day. But I was absolutely captivated by the material that you had housed in it. And it was like reading and feeling that you were in the room with me. And it was like a telepathy going on between us because I was so delighted that, ah, uh, at last somebody's written the stuff that I know, but I can't actually put into words and I can't actually express the way you did in terms of how you house those, those principles. So maybe I'll put it back to you and ask what does your first book cover and unearth in terms of those psychological principles you speak?

Speaker B: Well, the first book is, uh, its role in the trilogy is to explain what you really need to know about teams.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And what it is you need to know about teams is first what a team is and what a team isn't. Because there is a definition to a team and there are alternative work group units and that's something most people aren't aware of. You need to know too, that there are psychological forces going on below the surface. And if you're completely ignorant of them and you don't know anything about them, you're going to end up a victim of them. Net result, you almost certainly won't act and uh, succeed as a genuine team. And then the third big thing that you need to know that the book centres on is what I call the commit combust combine model. That's the second of the psychological models in there. But this is the practical model. This is the model that has a great answer to so what do I do with it? So I try to explain this is what's happening below the surface that you can use as a tool for diagnosing what's going on. So later on when I explain what you do to build a team, you can match the issue to the action.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So I'm explaining what you need to know about the psychology of teams and what gets in the way and what marks out a real team as opposed to the other kind of work groups, uh, or work units there are out there. That's the essence of book one, I would say, Tara.

Speaker A: And as I was reading it and rereading it quite candidly, I was, you know, pitting teams and you call out many examples of your own teams, but also organizations that we know, global organizations that we know. I think you called out a football team and a national football team and I think others, but you were sharing examples that made the material so rich and brought it to life, but really helped us understand these collective forces and what's at play. But I loved how you plotted up against um, the story that you know by way of the identity of a team, the purpose of a team, the values that the team does or doesn't have and you know, how their self efficacy and you plot that with the survival of all teams or all living systems. You describe that as a living system and then you, you twin it with the ultimate purpose of, of any system is to survive. And it just made so much sense. I was really taken with it. Then of course, you know, when you plotted on the individual forces and all the ways and the, you know, we have limiting beliefs, et cetera, that too made really great sense. And I was just curious, how do you help teams that you currently work with get with that material?

Speaker B: Well, the thing is, in a way I don't, uh, certainly not in the way that I have with in the book, I really don't take them into the deal forces model that I tend to avoid because in a coaching context, and you've got to remember all of my work with clients is as a coach, I don't really operate as an educator or a trainer, I suppose now the books are out. I might occasionally be asked to do some education of coaches if they were interested. But when I'm working with clients, I really don't talk about the dual forces model. It's a little bit too academic. It doesn't give them an immediate so what? The only thing I want them to know is, is that there is stuff going on below the surface. And only if they really asked about it would I talk about the dual forces in there. What I will sometimes do, I don't always do it. I just do this intuitively. I will sometimes say to a work group or a work team, tell me, just write down on a piece of paper, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the highest and 0 is the lowest, how easily and how well can you assert yourself naturally and powerfully and skillfully and generally get the reaction you want when you're working one to one? And they'll give themselves, let's say there's eight people. They'll each give themselves a score somewhere between zero and ten. And then I'll say, okay, same question. But now you're working in a group. How easily and how skillfully and how successfully and how naturally can you assert yourself and say what you're really wanting, really thinking, really feeling, and get the result you want again on a scale 0 to 10, but you're in a group situation. And then they write down a score there. And then we go around the room and we total their scores. So we've got their assertiveness scores 1 to 1, and their assertiveness scores in a group and guess which score is lower. And I'm sure you will have guessed it will be the group scheme. And I will occasionally use that as a device to sensitize them to the fact that they have always been aware that there's something strange and unnamed going on when they're working in a work group or, or a team. They've never been able to name it, but they know it presses in on them and it affects them. That is about as much as I will ever do when it comes to the dual forces model. I will, um, much more use the psychother psychological model, Commit Combust Combine, as well as the material from my second book. But even then, I won't usually talk about the Commit combust combine model in great detail because I want to make the sessions and as experiential and as developmental as possible.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So typically what I'll do is I will always explain what, uh, I call the Team progression curve which is uh, in, in the book one which explains where the different units are like potential team, pseudo team, real team, etc. I will draw that on a flip chart because I find people in teams and particularly the most demanding teams which are senior teams, they like it, they get it instantly. It intuitively makes sense and it shows them things they didn't know. That there is a choice of unit and there is a trap. The pseudo team. And then I will draw sort of arrows underneath the ascent from what I call the performance group to the real team. And uh, I'll show. Here's commit, here's combustion. Yes, combined. That's about all I will say after that when it comes to commit, combust and combine, I'm generally wanting them to experience it. And it's only right at the end of the coaching assignment as I'm bowing out, that's when I will give them a little bit of a teach in. And now I can refer them back to what they were experiencing months before and they go, oh, I see what you mean. And then I introduce them to the team fixer models so that they can self diagnose. So I don't give them lots of intellectual food on the two psychological models.

Speaker A: And uh, therefore to you and for you as a coach, how important was it for you to be able to synthesize these three psychological models for your use with teams?

Speaker B: Oh, I find it's essential you use the word synthesize. I am a synthesizer. I like bringing together disparate insights and bits. And the world of applied psychology frustrates me because I find there are so many people who describing the same things in different words that drives me nuts.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So um, synthesizing it was, it just felt innately important. But it has an application for me because I use my sense of which issue is foremost, commit, combust or combine to help uh, me figure out which of the seven principles and which are the details. What I call the action keys below the seven principles which to zoom in on. So it's a very good diagnosis. It's a very good uh, shortlist among the various actions we could take. It sort of helps me sort of hone in and see. Right. This is probably where we should be working.

Speaker A: So for the sake of the listeners, I'm just wondering if you could help us understand the interplay between those three forces you've just begun to uh, maybe not even understand. I understand this, the interplay, but maybe describe a little bit more the CCC model as I'm calling it and the uh, dual forces model, maybe just for the purposes of the listeners, what might they need to take away from this conversation?

Speaker B: Well uh, all they need to take away, particularly if they're professional coaches, is that there is a model that I call the dual forces model that explains what is happening below the bonnet. You could say that is making it difficult for teams to form easily. And uh, in fact they're making it more likely that they won't form. They just need to know that it exists. I really only wrote that to make the big point early on that if you don't take this subject seriously you are unlikely to succeed in building teams. So let me create a bit of pain for you, a little bit of anxiety for you to make you want to continue. Once you've got that it's done its job. It's like a rocket that uh, after two minutes as it's going up out of the atmosphere, that part of the rocket falls to earth that's done its job. It's going to be a far more interest to psychologists and coaches than it is to people in business. The commit combined model is much better for answering the question, so what do I do with this information? The dual forces model is just there to make the point. There's a lot of stuff going on below the surface and if you don't recognize it and if you don't act on these forces, you're not going to build a team. You've got to put conscious sustained effort in. This is not straightforward. It's not rocket science. It's tougher than rocket science. That's really all the dual forces model is there to do.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So let's go then into the, what I've shortened or shorthanded the CCC model. Could you describe that just thumbnail sketch of what uh, that's uh, about.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, this is where um, we've been fascinated with psychological safety for 20 years now. Google were talking about it, Amy Edmondson has correctly talked about it. And I'll put that in perspective within this model because the interesting thing is which many people haven't realized, trust and safety is not the first immediate issue. So Commit, combust combine is an attempt to uh, take the brilliant work of William Schutz from 50 odd years ago, nearly 60 years ago, which he kept updating until the early 80s and make it specific to teams. So commit is typically the first issue we face. So commit is all about engagement. Am I psychologically in this team or am um, I not? Now that's not the same as am I physically in the team, like, am I going to join the Brownies? Am I going to join the tennis club? Yes or no? Very often in a work team, we don't have a choice. You're in the team, but you have a choice as to whether you take it seriously, whether you genuinely commit yourself. So you'll recognize the commit issue when I give you these kind of questions. Think back to when you've joined a new team. You will have been subconsciously at least asking questions like, what's this team going to be like? Is this going to be a good team? What have we got to do here? How does the leader react to me? How are other people reacting to me? Can I sense a role here that adds value to what I think we're trying to achieve? Do I feel included and noticed based on the behavior of other people towards me? And if we're saying to ourselves, yeah, I think I understand why we're here. I like the purpose, I like what we're trying to achieve. I could be part of this. I feel noticed and valued. The leader pays attention to me. I think I can see a role. I mean, that's the simple way of describing the commit issue and what has to happen for us to navigate through it successfully.

Speaker A: As soon as you said, you know, we'll all recognize this, I was immediately drawn to an example I had, um, fairly recently was last year when I joined a supervision group and I was doing that self talk almost over the entire first session, you know, maybe even to the end of the second session. And there were only eight sessions in total in the whole program. So it's a lot of time, isn't it, that we're spending and affording ourselves that sort of questioning about commitment?

Speaker B: Yeah. And, uh, and if you haven't asked me this question, so I'm almost going to prompt it. Are there work teams that never get beyond the commit issue? You bet your bottom dollar there are.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: This can go on indefinitely.

Speaker A: Exactly. And what, what, what I meet often with teams is ambivalence. Is that the, the shadow of commitment?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say typically it is. Because if you think about it, if they're unclear what the aim, uh, of the group is, or if they're not unclear, they're clear, but they don't care about it, or they don't feel valued and included because people aren't paying attention to them, or they can't see how they add value in any way, they're unlikely to say, yeah, my hat's in the ring, I'm in.

Speaker A: And how long does it take for you, when you're with teams, to help them, um, explore their order of commit?

Speaker B: I don't really have a neat answer to that. I suppose my job is to make sure that is as short a period as possible and there are certain ways of doing it. Well, here's the difficult thing. The model is commit, combust, combine, and there are those three distinct issues. But as I've explained in book one, it's not like a psychological version of the famous form, storm, norm, perform model. These don't work like a ladder. There can be recycling of issues. So you can go from commit to combust and then recycle back to commit if there are, uh, unresolved issues. But if you're conducting a skillful team coaching process, how quickly could you go through that? Uh, you could go through it, say, within a month. I mean, it could take. In extreme circumstances, say in an elite military unit like the SAS or your rangers, it could take minutes. But in work teams, because we're so fuzzy about purpose and goals and we're very poor on making me feel it could take months, but if you're doing it well, a month or two to resolve.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess typically, I guess, yeah, it's just curious about all the work and all those questions that probably have to be, you know, surfaced, um, in the array of questions that fit and sit under commit to be curious about keeping teams with that conversation until we get to a place. And as you say, you know, you can cycle back. Um, it's not, um, it doesn't run up a ladder, um, completing it out. Just for listeners, the combust means and the combined means.

Speaker B: Right. So when commit is resolved enough and enough people in the group have said, right, on the basis of what I've experienced so far, I'm in. Of course, they've never said that to themselves. But this is what's actually going on below the surface. This is when the combust issue, uh, emerges. And you might wonder, why does combust emerge and why does combine emerge afterwards? Because if you think about it, nothing is going to happen afterwards unless people have said, I'm in, because if they're not in, they're not going to care. So combust is essentially about power. And this is analogous to, um, the storm phase. So now we're asking ourselves questions like, how do we get things done here? How do we make decisions here? Is that clear to me? Is that acceptable to me? What is my part in those decisions? How happy am I with my influence over those decisions? Uh, what Is the role I'm playing in making those decisions and acting on those decisions, and am I happy with that role and my degree and influence on the decision and the execution of that? So you can see it's all around power, influence and role. In commit. We're maybe trying to sense that there is a possible role in, in combust. We're trying to settle into a role that meets our, uh, power needs. And not all of us have the same power needs. Some people want to be very upfront and obviously powerful. Some people like to be what they used to call the eminence Gris, the power behind the throne. And some people would rather take a back seat and do the equivalent of take orders. So you're seeing resolution of combust when people are saying, yeah, I understand how we make decisions here, and I'm okay with that as a process. Uh, and I'm happy with my degree of influence over that, and I'm happy with the role I play in the execution of that. And I can see now that a sense of order and structure is emerging, and I'm feeling pretty good about this. That's the resolution of combust.

Speaker A: And James, the choice of the word combust, is it indicative or suggestive of the likelihood of that being the outcome? Combustion.

Speaker B: Uh, I will let you into a little secret here. Just as was, uh, it. Bruce Tuckman, Was that his name? It was somebody, Tuckman, who came up with the form storm norm perform model. He admitted long, long, long ago, decades ago, that the real reason for the success of his model was that it had a neat rhyming trick to it. Okay, so I wanted something that was kind of memorable. It took me ages to come up with commit, combustion, combine. And I wanted a word that signified what went in there, but formed part of the, um, label for the model. So that's really why. But it was meant to signify. This is where sparks can fly, either in an overt way or in a covert way.

Speaker A: Sure, sure. And why, why, as you say, it could equally, in those sparks flying, um, scenarios, fall back into commit, and then have to recycle out again to, you know, get through those conversations. Um, so how do you segue that into Your, your proprietary 7Pmodel, the P standing for principles.

Speaker B: Well, you've just skipped over combined. You want to just.

Speaker A: No apologies. No, I do definitely want to complete the 3C model, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, because. Because this is where psychological safety comes in. Because anyone listening to this may be wondering, well, wait a minute, where does that come in? Because isn't that important? Yes, it is. But please note that in my view, uh, and this is based on research by William Schutz. It's not the first issue. It's a big issue, but it's not the first. First is commit. And then there's the. The power issue tends to emerge before the trust issue, research shows. And both the trust issues and the power issues will never emerge unless people have said, I care enough about this group to even want to wrestle with those issues.

Speaker A: Yes, it makes sense. It does indeed.

Speaker B: Combine is a bit more intricate because there's two sides. Think of it as a coin with two sides. The first side of combine is about trust and intimacy, and the second is about focus. So the trust and intimacy. This is where we're now saying, uh, we've got questions like, is it actually safe to say what I'm really thinking, what I'm really feeling? Uh, who can I trust here? Do I trust anybody here? Is it safe to be the real me? Or if I express myself naturally and honestly, will I find myself, um, uh, being rejected, being disliked? Um, so we're playing with that safety game. So there is that. But what it comes down to is, is it okay to be open to say what's really on my mind here? We've got to get through that. And then the other aspect of it is the other side of that coin, the combined coin is the first two and a half issues commit, combust. And the first bit of combine has all been about me. My fears, my issues, my desires, my needs. Now, for the first time, we're starting to say, can I see a way of getting what I want from this group and giving the group what it needs? Am I prepared to put the groups, ah, agenda ahead of mine? So I'm now thinking in terms of we rather than me. And am I prepared to, um, uh, not sacrifice, but put my own growth at the service of the group so that the group's agenda and goals is at least as important as mine? So that's. That's what I mean by the focus. Is the focus on we, or is it me? And it needs to become on we for us to navigate combined successfully.

Speaker A: Which is why I loved the, uh, individual forces of the dual forces model, because you articulate so clearly all of the ways that we can have these beliefs, um, about our worldviews, um, our values and our work and what we believe about work. And that notion of I versus we, I think is so interestingly articulated there in that the individual forces, because it is again, another question of committing know I'm rewarded individually. But they're asking me to be team. Like all those questions, do you hear what I'm saying? Or asking James? So it's so important, I think as an individual listening to this too, as a member of a team, to be really mindful of, you know, what is your worldview about work and standards and people and authority and, um, being on a team versus not being on a team, because I meet that pretty much in every team that there'll be one person who's quite eye focused and they can show up as cynical, they can drag their feet, um, and you know, manifest in all kinds of ways. But I think that idea of wrestling with what are you believing, what are you thinking? What's your efficacy about this team? Is important. And I'm not even asking you a question here. I'm kind of just, I'm, you know, connecting. I suppose I'm connecting, synthesizing in my own head, you know, the individual forces and how they can play out in that, in that second part of combine,

Speaker B: as I say, the individual forces and the collective forces, which is together they make a dual forces model. That model will be probably of great interest to psychologists and professional coaches, less so to people who work in business and organizations. It's the commit combust combined model that is going to be much more interesting. Uh, to our clients. I would have said that's my experience so far.

Speaker A: And already even in this conversation, the way you've shared them, I can experience them as that being the truth too. I mean, I'm interested. But I can also hear the so what question sitting behind it that commit combustion combined can answer. Um, and you know, it speaks to the journey of an individual on a team very quickly, um, versus maybe the loveliness of the dual forces model and understanding that from a psychological point of view. So you go on then in book two to outline your proprietary 7Pmodel where P stands for principles. And again, I'm going to ask you. And I loved it. I just loved it. And I also loved it for the differences that I've seen in terms of references to other models. So perhaps you can explore what to you is important about that collection of seven principles.

Speaker B: Well, the number one thing is that I'm saying that if you apply those seven principles in a sequence that makes sense in the situation you're in and you do it skillfully, I'm basically arguing that you will nail the three psychological issues. Commit combust combine, which is, I'm saying you've got to do if you're going to get up to what I call real team status. Um, so that's the number one point I'm really making about them. Those seven principles and the action keys underneath them, they are designed to help you address the issues I've tried to describe in the commit combust combine model.

Speaker A: And James, when you're working with teams and they've committed to you and the work, where do you find resistance starts showing?

Speaker B: It typically starts showing when they're considering the idea of team coaching. Actually, I would say I tend to work with, uh, pretty senior teams and they're not used to this sort of stuff. They're used to seeing other people, more junior people having to go through all of this. So I find a lot of umming and ahhing about that. If someone has read my stuff, uh, or has worked with me before, they're usually much more warmed up to it. And I think they draw some solace from the fact that I've been in their situation. I've been a CEO, I've worked in business. I get it. I know how difficult it is for them. So that's the initial resistance. I generally find that if you come in fairly quickly and work on something that is immediately helping them with commit because logically that is the first issue. So that's a good place to start. And they have a sense that the wheels are turning, the cold gears are turning, you're immediately getting confidence and any doubts about being in the process start to fade away as they can see payoffs. So very, very often there are exceptions. If the team has acquired the very bad habit of lying to each other, they of course wouldn't call it lying, but they've acquired the habit of pretending, uh, and they are in danger or well down the path towards becoming what I call a pseudo team, unless that danger is present, in which case I will often do some work on their ability to be more genuine with people. I will typically work on what I call their motivating purpose because that is a great way of getting them to start practicing some initial honesty with each other and feeling valued and noticed and feeling that their collective objective is something they give a damn about.

Speaker A: Yeah, now you've hit on something that I definitely was, you know, remarked and was surprised by and struck maybe not surprised by a difference I saw when you talked about, you know, a team's basic purpose and their motivating purpose. And I loved it. So m. Maybe you can take the floor and share. What do you mean by a team's motivating purposes versus their basic purpose?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, the term motivating purpose comes from my first book where I describe leadership as the process of paying attention to four dimensions. And the first of the four dimensions is motivating purpose. Uh, for a company, a motivating purpose is typically a vision. But for a team, motivating m purpose comes in the form of its number one goal, as I call it. But you're right, I do draw a distinction between basic purpose and motivating purpose. And I find it is an essential distinction. And now you've asked me the question. As I scan the books on team building and team coaching that I've read, a heck of a lot of them blur the two, and I think that is one of the problems. So one of my aims was to pull them apart so that people could see that they are connected, but they are distinct. So for me, basic purpose is the answer to why do we exist as a collective unit? What is our raison d', etre, as the French would call it? So basic purpose is, um, the answer to the question why do we exist as a collective unit, what the French call the raison d'? Etre? And you need to get that clear, because if you don't, it becomes impossible to figure out what kind of skills and therefore what kind of people should be in the team. Now, in, uh, most cases when I've coached teams, they do know what their basic purpose is, and that's not a problem. However, on the two occasions I have encountered it as a problem, its effects were devastating. And I've described the two in stories in the book. And we can go into that if you wish, but I won't go into it now unless you want. So basic purpose is the answer to why do we exist? And sometimes it can be enough to say our job is to lead the company to continued growth and success. That can be good enough, but sometimes it isn't. Motivating purpose is different. Motivation purpose is much more urgency bringing, much more localized, much more specific. It is the answer to what is the most important thing we've got to get done together in the next maximum 12 months. Typically I would say three to 12 months. So naturally it reflects the basic purpose, but it brings it down to something much more specific and much more urgent. That's why I would never go beyond 12 months. It's got to feel much more here and now. Why? Because it is a device for building a team. You're not going to have a team. You're not going to have any unity or any commitment if nobody knows exactly what they're committing to. And the basic purpose is usually not enough. I mean if you've got a sensational basic purpose, like to get Tara Nolan to the moon by Christmas 2024 and bring her back safely, okay, um, that's a four month objective and it's sensational. And I don't know how we're going to do it, but man, it's exciting. An example of a basic purpose for a time limited team like a project team could be to save the business from going under by finding 15 million pounds of savings by the end of February. Now that is a basic purpose that can function as a motivating purpose. But it is very, very, very rare in my experience to find a motivating purpose that is the same as a basic purpose. The basic purpose is usually why do we exist? It's a more philosophical answer. Basic purpose gives the answer to a, uh, motivating purpose rather gives the answer to what have we got to get done in the next three to 12 months. You make it very specific, very urgent. You make sure you express it in emotional language, not boilerplate, uh, management jargon, which you can find. You back it with no more than three metrics, three metric zones and targets against it. And you get it written down and you check that everybody really cares about it to the point where if they don't achieve it, they will feel wrong, they will feel they've let themselves down and you can see as a device and if you build in ways, particularly if you build in check ins where people are listened to and feel noticed and then you build in sessions where they're going. They start with, well, what are the things that worry us most in the business? Before you flip it and turn to questions. So therefore, what's our number one goal? You can see that in fact you can rush them almost or speed them through the commit issue. And they've now got the answer to this is what we're committing to. And damn, I'm in. This really matters.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're sharing it so passionately and so eloquently here and you share it so well too in your book that I took it on. I think you're absolutely right. That distinction is not made in many of the literature and books, books that I've read in terms of the philosophical purpose and the real motivating what do we have to get done here? Let's get going guys. Phenomenon. And so that was really beautiful. And I was similarly struck by the principle of performance group or real team. And we've spoken a little bit to that, but you know, still you have it as a call out as a, as a principle. And it's not to be just glossed over in a sentence or, uh, you know, a paragraph or in a conversation piece. It's, it's actual work. Do we need to be a real team or do we need to be a performance group? And do we know the difference in what's involved here? I love that as a distinction. You've also alluded to leadership and your leadership work. And you told me that the motivating purpose was the first principle of that work. And I'm curious, what would you say about it as a principle in your second book here in the trilogy?

Speaker B: Yes, it's the third principle. I call it shared flexibility, principled leadership. And it's one that is absolutely essential, obviously for team leaders to grasp. No question about that. But the thing is, it's equally important to their teammates because of the shared leadership bit. I'll, uh, come back to the shared bit in a moment because the word leadership I have found from individual coaching is a massive problem for executives. They have a very unhelpful mental model that I've found is universal across all cultures. It's really interesting. So here's how I see leadership. It's not a person, it's not a role, it's not an office. It is a process. It is in fact a four dimensional process in my view. The process of paying attention to motivating purpose. There it is again. Task progress and results upholding, uh, group unity and paying attention to individual nuances. So for me, leadership is the process of paying attention to those four dimensions. So that's what leadership and a team means to me. But let me step back and explain why that definition is so significant. Because I find people need to make a shift in the way they see leadership. Because I've done lots of work with individuals, uh, on this. The way they see leadership is making it difficult for them to lead a team. And the way their teammates are seeing leadership is making it difficult for them to share leadership in a team. So when I've asked clients, when I say the word leadership, what does that mean to you? Um, and I'm going to give you the short version. They will give me loads of associations and then I'll say, fine, how do you define it? And they will eventually say something like, something reasonable, like it's leading a, uh, team of people to achieve a common purpose or something perfectly reasonable like that. And then I'll say to them, and how useful is that in guiding what you do and how you do it. And they'll always grin and say, well, it's bloody useless. It's no help whatsoever. Now here's the interesting thing. When I go back to their mental associations and dig further, doesn't matter how I do it. That can be another conversation, if you wish. What emerges is that their real definition of leadership goes something like, leadership is done by people with remarkable qualities who get sensational results. And, uh, the people love the process. So what? Well, this definitely affected me when I was a CEO, and it has definitely affected every client I've ever met. But we are not aware of it consciously. So we've got this kind of green thought form up, uh, here, and we're down here and we're comparing ourselves against it. And we feel a horrible sense of deficit because this is how we think we should be. This is how we know we are. And we can only feel a horrible sense of gap and inadequacy. What does that do? It drives us into defensive behaviors. And, um, again, I'm simplifying. It'll drive us towards the task because we're terrified of failure. So we can end up micromanaging or over criticizing or dictating or what have you, or it can drive us towards relationships in a desperate wish not to be seen as unpopular, but we overlook the need to get things done. So what actually happens is that leaders and the people they're trying to lead, their teammates are conflating leadership with leader, and that gets in the way. So bringing it back to shared leadership, what I'm talking about is, yes, there is an official leader, and the official leader is there as a tiebreaker, uh, when the group isn't paying attention to all four dimensions. But everybody there should be helping to move things along in all four dimensions. And, and they've got to, because there's too much for one person to know and to do, and certainly to know and to do under urgent conditions. Uh, it just isn't possible. So that's what I mean by shared leadership. It means everyone sharing the process of paying attention to it. And that's why this is important for teammates to know.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it also then speaks to the kinds of conversations and also skills that individual members need to have, like giving each other feedback, like, you know, being able to have what are often purported as difficult conversations, you know, because if they're not taking up that responsibility to share leadership and to be in conversations about, hey, what's going on here? And why are we doing this? Et cetera, you know, there's often a sort of, well, the leader needs to take care of that, that stuff. Or you know, and it can easily absolve people of responsibility and accountability.

Speaker B: I'm sensing that's right. Look, this approach, the dominant single leader is absolutely fine in a performance group which is essentially a hub and spokes model. But no, it's not going to work in a real team. If you take a look at what happens in sports teams like a rugby team or a football team, you haven't got the captain yelling out instructions, pass it to X, do Y. You can't do it. You're all m having to make decisions and act on them in the moment. It's a bit more dynamic and obvious in a sports team, but the same is happening in a management team. For example. And interestingly, if you talk to people, as I've done in the sas, our special services military elite, uh, unit in the army, I think you have the Rangers in Ireland and I've talked to somebody in the Green Berets, Special Forces in the United States. They've got this idea of shared leadership. They've got it for decades. Uh, hierarchy means nothing to them. You can have the senior person like a captain, uh, or a major, and if their plan is a load of rubbish, they will be called out for it. And the most, uh, the best qualified in the moment will take the lead. That's natural. They've assumed the idea of shared leadership as a natural concept for decades. We in business haven't yet grasped it. We think it's a kind of interesting democratic ideal. Whereas in fact genuine teams of rulers. No, it's a must.

Speaker A: It's a must. Exactly. And I'm curious, as the curious mongrel I am and can be, is that, uh, what is our attachment? Is it the false identity with leadership that keeps us in that bind with respect to the, the hierarchy, Hierarchy and command and control and the heroic leader or what is it that keeps us attached to that construct?

Speaker B: It's two things. It's the first thing you referred to is this archetypical idea of, uh, what leadership means and its conflation with the leader. That's very powerful. Very, very powerful. Uh, and the second thing is that people are unaware of the distinction between performance groups and real teams.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And if they were aware of the distinction, they would realize, realize that a single, you know, largely dominant democratic. Ish, but dominant leader, that's absolutely fine in a performance group, but will not work in a real team. But if you're not aware of the distinction and you blur the two. And you put that together with the archetype around leadership and the leader and the superhuman view, it all means that shared leadership becomes more difficult, which is one reason why I've decided to bust out these points in the books.

Speaker A: Yeah, and you're fantastic. And so, uh, the third book then goes into, you know, Team Fixer and your ideas there. What did you discover that surprised you?

Speaker B: What, in writing the third book in particular.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: What surprised me above all was how difficult the questions that were asked of me. For the Frequently asked questions chapter, there were several questions when I thought, wow, I don't know the answer to that. This is going to be really interesting. Uh, off the top of my head, I can't remember which ones they were, but I do remember there were 5 or 6 out of the 40 I've written answers to. I thought, wow. So they surprised me. I didn't see those coming. I remember. And I remember thinking, I wonder if I'm going to be able to come up with an answer for this. And so the question surprised me and, uh, so did the answers. Eventually, I felt I learned from the process of answering those questions.

Speaker A: Well, I just found it so rich again. I mean, it's like, I suppose it's immersing all the three books, um, in my head and then back to it. And I was going, wow, there's so much wealth of, uh, information in them. I would just be curious about what you might want to say about, you know, busting myths, or we've been tipping at myths here about teams, etc. But any other ideas that you might have about what you'd love to say about the state, the current state of teams and what you'd like to see happen.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a couple of myths I'd like to bust, and there's a trap I'd like to be. Everybody, everybody to be aware of. Myth number one is what you could call, uh, the biggest thing that people think they know about team building that is that it isn't true. And in my opinion, it's this, that team building is straightforward. You don't have to put conscious effort in. It's not rocket science. And I want to yell from the, uh, roof of the town hall, no, I think it's tougher than rocket science. You talk to rocket scientists and they'll say, the essence of it is actually pretty simple. You've got to get the rocket moving. One, you've got to get the rocket moving fast enough to escape the force of gravity. And You've got to plot a course, and you can do all that with mathematical equations. Here's the bad news. With a work group. It's made up of human beings who've got free will, so we can change our minds at any time. And you've got all these psychological subterranean forces I was referring to below the surface, causing mayhem. So building winning teams that last and rebuilding them when they break up, and they always do. This is tough. It's a demanding, complex challenge. Why do you think so many top, very capable sports team coaches get fired every season? This is difficult. And these people have been learning the art for years, unlike us in business. So that's myth number one. Myth number two would be, I suppose, the most important thing people don't know that they, uh, really need to know. It's allied to the first, but it's different. It's that it's not easy to do consistently. But look, if you put the effort in to learn and to practice the art, not only will you get better results, you'll actually enjoy the experience of being at work more.

Speaker A: I think that's such an important point. That is such an important point.

Speaker B: The third to finish off is making people aware of a trap. And this is the trap of the pseudo team. And I can't take credit for that label. It was, um, John Katzenbach and Douglas Smith who came up with that label 30, 40 years ago. But a lot of people have forgotten about it, and most people don't even know it. So I'm resurrecting it because I think it's so important. If you sort of play pictures in your mind and you see the journey from performance group up the curve that I've drawn to a real team, if you see it as a kind of a journey across marshland, and you imagine quicksand amid the, uh, the marshland, the quicksand represents the. The pseudo team trap. And the pseudo team trap, I'm afraid, is a common one. Uh, in my experience, pseudo teams are not rare, and they're probably a bit more common the more senior you go. And the pseudo team is the group that chases the idea of becoming a genuine team. Uh, not because they've got a collective something that they've got to achieve together that demands them to solve problems together or create something together or execute together. But they think this is what you do in the 21st century. And they put all the emphasis on teamwork, being emotionally supportive, asking helpful questions, being nice to each other. Basically, they're putting the emphasis on teamwork and being Civil and friendly. And so they're basically pursuing harmony above all else. But they end up achieving poor results because they lose their focus on what it is they got to get done. Um, and they give teams a bad name. So what they don't have is a highly motivating performance goal that absolutely demands that they pool their efforts. They're not solving problems and create things together. They're not applying certain disciplines to each other, like what I call joint accountability and being open with each other. And consequently their results are pretty poor. So pseudo teams lack all four characteristics. They give teams a bad name. And often people will say, teams don't work, or I don't like teams because they've had experience of being in pseudo teams. So I want people to know about this trap and how it's contaminating our attitude to teams.

Speaker A: Beautiful. Thank you. My gosh. Yes. So, James, I genuinely found your books fascinating. I know I'm going to be dipping and reading them, um, for many years to come, but I wonder how you might like to close out this conversation between us. What else might you want to say to close?

Speaker B: I think I would say what I said a few minutes ago, that this is not an easy area. Uh, this is difficult. This is why top sports team coaches get fired. This is difficult. So accept it. But if you put the effort in, you absolutely can learn the art. You've got to practice. This is not an intellectual thing. You've got to. There are things to read and study and then apply. There are models you can use, but you absolutely can learn the art. And not only will you see better results, you will find the experience of working in a team can become one of the most interesting and joyful things in your life. That's my personal experience. But you have got to be prepared to put some effort in. There are things to learn, but you can do it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I agree. I totally agree. James, how can we get in touch with you or be in touch with you or what else? How can readers access listeners access this conversation?

Speaker B: Yeah, I could tell them a few places to go, but the easiest is to give them just one try. My main, I call it platform website leadership masterysuite.com that's suite spelt S U I T E leadershipmastery suite.com and they'll find all kinds of videos and tools and arch, uh, and, uh, and. And. And just various bits and pieces there. And by the way, if your listeners are particularly interested in this, if they add forward, slash, got at the end for game of teams so.com forward, slash, got. They'll go to a welcome page where I've offered, um, sets of tools for them for free. Drawn from or two of them are drawn from the books. One of them is specially for your podcast. There's, uh, some special resources there. And then they can roam the rest of the website if they wish.

Speaker A: Beautiful. And of course, they can buy the trilogy, which I would recommend. James.

Speaker B: They can buy the trilogy easily. Yes. On Amazon. Yeah.

Speaker A: And, James, I wonder if just say a huge thank you for this conversation. I know we could talk for hours. There's so much in your books. There's so much that I'd love to know more about. Um, but I've really enjoyed this conversation with you, and I just want to say thank you. And I will, of course, put all the references you've just shared in my show notes on my website, um, so people can go back to that and reference, um, your website, too. So just, uh, one, uh, word. Thank you.

Speaker B: You're welcome. I've enjoyed it.

Speaker A: So you've just been listening to the Game of Teams podcast series with me, your host, Tara Nolan. If you've loved this episode and you'd love to get more conversations of this nature, just go over to itunes and sign up under the Game of Teams. You can also do that on Spotify, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and on, um, Google Play. And if you don't want to do that, just go over to my own website called taranolan Ie. And there you'll find all of these episodes and the very many show notes that I promise I'll write after each and every episode. I'm delighted you've listened in today, and I look forward to having you back here on the Game of Teams podcast series with me, Tara Nolan. Thank you for listening. Good luck.