The world's best performance coach explains how he transforms teams
Sep 8, 2023
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Owen Eastwood, the world's best performance coach, shares his approach of emphasizing a powerful shared identity and belonging to transform teams. They discuss purpose, identity, and belonging, and how creating a positive and inclusive environment fosters team collectiveness. The importance of creating a shared purpose defined by all participants is highlighted. Strategies to overcome barriers of team collectiveness are shared, along with the importance of storytelling and finding individual purpose in work.
Creating a shared story and identity fosters belonging and motivates individuals to work towards a common goal.
Culture and identity principles are transferable across different environments and can be applied in hybrid work settings.
Building relationships and empathy among leaders is crucial for fostering safe conflict and driving higher performance in teams.
Deep dives
Creating an Optimal Environment for Leadership Success
As a performance coach, Owen Eastwood helps leaders create an optimal environment for their teams to thrive. He emphasizes the importance of having a shared story and identity as a team, and values that guide behavior. This sense of belonging and purpose motivates individuals to work towards a common goal and suppress self-interest. Creating a culture where individuals feel included and trusted fosters high performance.
Transferring Principles of Culture and Identity to Different Environments
Owen Eastwood believes that the principles of culture and identity are transferable across different environments, from sports teams and elite organizations to everyday workplaces. While the specific stories and examples may differ, the underlying need for belonging and creating an environment that signals a sense of purpose and shared values remains the same. These principles can be applied in hybrid work settings as well, where technology can be leveraged to build connections and facilitate important conversations.
Empowering Teams to Co-create a Shared Story
When shaping a team's culture and identity, Owen Eastwood advocates for leaders to be intentional and use storytelling to articulate the team's values, purpose, and achievements. It is important to involve the team members in the conversation to co-create the team's story, allowing them to challenge and provide input. This approach fosters psychological safety, trust, and ownership among the team, while balancing what aspects of the culture are tapu (sacred and non-negotiable) and what aspects allow freedom for individual expression. The core focus is on building a strong micro-team within the larger organization.
Creating Intimacy and Building Relationships in Leadership
One of the main ideas discussed in the podcast is the importance of creating intimacy and building relationships among leaders. The speaker shared an experience where he worked with three top generals who had a complete lack of intimacy and relationship with each other due to constantly being surrounded by staff. To address this issue, the speaker negotiated for the staff to be absent during their meetings and instead focused on creating a space for the generals to share their personal stories. This simple act of sharing their backgrounds and experiences brought them closer together and transformed their working dynamic. The speaker highlights that building relationships and empathy among leaders is crucial for fostering safe conflict, introducing new ideas, and driving higher performance in teams.
The Power of Creating a Shared Narrative in Teams
Another key point discussed in the podcast is the value of creating a shared narrative or story within teams. The speaker shares a personal story from his own life where he sought to find a sense of belonging. Through reaching out to his Indigenous tribe, he discovered his place in history and the intergenerational connection of his ancestors. Drawing from this experience, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding one's place in the world and the interlocking connection with others in a team or community. By establishing a shared narrative and purpose, teams can align their values, expectations, and behaviors towards a common goal. This not only creates a sense of belonging but also enables individuals to be accountable as guardians of the team's culture and to make collective progress towards a shared vision.
Owen Eastwood is the most in-demand team performance coach in the world
He's earned that reputation by delivering break-through results with a diverse range of teams from Gareth Southgate’s England team and the England women’s team, to the senior leadership team of NATO. His former clients represent an elite range of teams who have gone on to achieve incredible victories. We wanted to understand how he did it.
What does he say? What does he ask?
Eastwood’s approach is consistent. By zooming out and pointing our fleeting contribution to legacy he urges teams to think about their ‘Us’ story. For me this suggests that what he’s actually doing is emphasising a powerful shared identity. In my mind I would see this as activating a visceral bond of community, he chooses to label it as ‘belonging’. That distinction ends up feeling semantic when presented with what his approach achieves.
