Crafting Adaptable and Empowered Teams with RallyBright CEO John Estafanous

Explore the dynamic world of team intelligence and performance with guest John Estafanous, CEO of RallyBright, on The Future of Teamwork podcast. John shares insights on fostering high-performing teams, navigating growth from a small to a global organization, and embedding purpose into technology functions. Dive into the nuances of conflict, adaptability, and resilience while unraveling the essence of driving successful teams in an ever-evolving landscape. Host Dane Groeneveld encapsulates the conversation's key moments, from defining middle purpose to leveraging data for meaningful impact.

Key Takeaways

• [01:30 - 06:16] Introducing John Estafanous, CEO of RallyBright, a team intelligence and performance platform
• [02:36 - 06:16] A team intelligence and performance platform that helps measure, diagnose, and improve team performance and dynamics to create high-performing teams. John's path from law school, becoming a CTO of a company with a 37% attrition rate and needing to fix it.
• [06:18 - 08:08] How do leaders build teams and people to achieve a common business purpose together to do bigger and better things? When managers become leaders, they develop better teams.
• [08:09 - 08:46] Better with computers than with lawyers, being a literature major in undergrad
• [08:47 - 10:30] Going from 100 to 400 people in a global organization, drinking from a fire hose, starting with the right foundational elements to get people aligned
• [10:30 - 11:39] Where and at what stage did John position purpose in the technology function of building teams
• [11:43 - 14:20] How do we support individuals in their goals so teams can drive company goals
• [13:03 - 14:20] Empowering teams to act as business owners, growing agency and accountability with clear OKRs and objectives
• [14:21 - 16:13] What we do is a team sport whether we like it or not. Any business function is a team sport.
• [16:13 - 18:38] Having Microsoft as a customer, understanding core business drivers and frameworks to enable them
• [18:38 - 21:10] Creating adaptable teams that understand their customers. Two drivers: COVID and the rate of disruption
• [21:10 - 23:59] When change happens, most disruption occurs to the customer, focusing on wellbeing and preventing burnout. Building connections in a hybrid and remote world.
• [24:00 - 27:11] Three types of conflict: relationship, process, task. Creating psychological safety and doing more with less while under the gun of economic and geopolitical pressures
• [25:19 - 27:11] All about conflict, it can be a driver of innovation, creativity, and problem-solving if handled well
• [27:15 - 28:32] Sometimes it's better to make the wrong decision than a slow decision, on overanalyzing and vulnerability[] 
• [28:31 - 29:46] Teams don't understand how other teams are executing their agendas, how does purpose ladder into different teams in the organization
• [29:47 - 32:57] Adaptability and balance, teams that don't experiment enough to make resilient teams, engaging with diversity
• [31:59 - 32:42] Our product is called resilient teams, engaging with adversity, rebounding from setbacks, performance through disruption
• [33:00 - 35:06] Measuring what matters with the right foundation: do you want to be graphite, or do you want your team to be a diamond
• [35:07 - 36:04] Crispy and resilience, what characteristics of elasticity and how wide or narrow is our rubber band
• [36:06 - 39:42] Building a helpful tool essential to someone's day job and growing to be a better team, behavioral components.
• [39:42 - 43:50] Leading indicators of success and partnering with HR, ma