The Game of Teams

Join Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership & Management at Harvard Business School, as she unpacks the concept of psychological safety in the workplace. She explains why it’s a game changer for innovation and learning, drawing on real-world examples like Pixar and the NASA shuttle incident. Amy shares how leaders can create an open environment for collaboration, stressing the rarity of psychological safety and its potential to transform organizational culture. Prepare to rethink the way teams operate and thrive!

Introduction: Olivia is a Director of EY’s Diversity & Inclusion service in Ireland. She leads a team to help clients achieve their D&I ambitions as a key driver for Talent Acquisition, employee engagement, and ultimately success in the market place. Before joining EY, Oliva ran her own successful practice, consulting to Government, State Agencies and to the Voluntary sector on stakeholder engagement and the business of cultural participation.  Olivia has worked on some incredibly important projects for Children in care in Ireland. She has been instrumental in driving strategic change as part of her role as Chair of the Board of Directors of the national LGBT Federation. Olivia holds a M.SC in Interactive Digital Media, a B.A (HONS) in Sociology and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and she is also an accredited life coach.   Podcast episode summary: This episode packs an enormous amount of practical information/insight and wisdom into the business for Diversity and Inclusion as a strategic imperative for Organisations. Olivia believes this work is not the work of a few passionate champions but a deliberate and well thought trough strategy, a strategy that impacts systemically. Olivia shares stories and her wisdom working in this field and builds a strong case for more Leadership Inclusivity training and practices that support companies be future fit.   Show highlights:   Olivia grew up in rural Ireland and is from Cavan. At age 17 she left to move to Canada where she discovered philosophy and went onto study Philosophy and Sociology in Trinity College Dublin -her ideal is to contribute to society She describes the state of the nation of D&I in Ireland as a disconnect where 100% of participants in organisations say D&I is important but only 53.1% have a strategy in place, where only 25% have conducted a diagnostic and where only 16% are actually measuring the ROI There needs to be a gear change and that gear change will only come about if we consider D&I as a strategic imperative and where we tackle the concern systemically Companies needs to have a D&I lens that that covers the entire business In early 2000’s in Ireland it was rare for Children to have a voice or to be able to influence decisions that were made about their welfare. The Ryan Report changed that. Olivia worked on that project and whilst harrowing to listen to some of the Children’s story she was proud that Ireland implemented the recommendations from the report Olivia describes how the word Diversity is perhaps the easier of the two words to understand and implement in D&I. Inclusiveness is harder to implement. Sometimes it is simply about starting. Trick is to blow open the notion of Diversity as being broader that just a “women’s thing” Diversity is made accessible when it is described in broader terms to include everything you see and maybe don’t see, such as age, race & ethnicity, gender, LGBT, ability, neuro diversity, personalities and different cognitive patterns or perspectives D&I is about performance, decision making, risk taking, interpersonal risk taking and risk excellence. D&I on teams can lead to greater degrees of innovation, knowing your customer, challenging norms and narrow biases. Important to recognise that being inclusive is about developing skills-it is a skillset. EY teach or train for Leadership Inclusivity. They start at foundation-what is D&I? What is business case for D&I?, What are the required behaviours and skills and end by defining some real goals and measures. Olivia reminded us of the lost art of knowing our people, helping people understand their role and how it connects to the higher purpose of the organisation, noticing and seeking out diverse perspectives Olivia reminded me of the Key Note address given by Andrew Keating, Group CFO for Bank of Ireland. Andrew very poignantly remarked that if he had been born Andrea rather than Andrew, he would not have enjoyed the same meteoric rise to success as he has enjoyed as a man. Neuro diversity is the next big insight. 85% of people who are considered Neuro Diverse or on the spectrum are unemployed. Olivia and EY believe we can change or help change this statistic by changing our approach to recruitment for one but also how we view these people. To be future fit organisations need to embrace D&I holistically. Important to remind ourselves that Millenials who comprise over 51% of our work force & generation Y are choosing employers not only on the basis of reward and recognition but also on the basis of the company’s reputation, brand, social media practices, ethical practices and D&I programs Smart working and the gig portfolio are ways of working that are only increasing and curiously they are gender neutral. What is missing is the training to support team leads be with teams who work remotely, or work in a gig fashion. Some nuggets on parting; - Simply start, -Do not cut and paste the approach taken by Google instead companies would do well to develop their own bespoke D&I strategy -Conduct a diagnostic and work out what is working and what employees think about the company’s inclusive practices -mine the Data and finally ensure Leadership accountability and Executive Leadership buy-in Olivia ended our conversation by pondering the word “belonging” and questioned whether we do in fact need to belong at work. Is it not better to remember we have outside lives and that people are holistic -we need to nurture environments that allow for that.     Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation   EY Ireland 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Survey Report The Ryan Report The Department of Children and Youth Affairs-TACTIC (Teenagers and Children talking in Care) Project- Growing up in Ireland Project -a longitudinal study, studying 9 month old children and children 9 years of age in terms of what it means to grow up in Ireland

Introduction: Terrie is a bit revolutionary and evolutionary in her thinking and approach. Terrie coaches and advises leaders and teams worldwide. She uses innovative change processes to help individuals and teams improve  the results they get without having to sacrifice well-being Terrie is a Master Certified Coach, she is a pioneer in the field of coaching and was one a number of professionals who codified the Core Coaching Competencies used today as the standard of Coaching Professionalism worldwide. Terrie is currently chief disruptor at her own company, Terrie Lupberger and associates, senior director at Altus Growth Partners, Program Facilitator for the Executive Circle for Women who Lead and Director of Training for the Coach Partnership (formerly Newfield Asia)   Podcast episode summary: This episode illuminated the many conversations that are missing on teams and spoke to the need for Leaders and members to be cognisant of the promises they hold for the sake of the team, the mood they live and the shape or quality of their team standards. Terrie spoke of some team myths, debunked the notion that teams simply exist to work but instead exist to fulfil a promise. She also communicated her desire for more teams to enjoy their time together, to be enlivened by the work, to be nourished and fulfilled by the work they do together. There is too much suffering & wasted energy going on in organisations. Conversations could change the shape of work life.    Show highlights:   Terrie started life working in Washington DC as a manager in the treasury department A program designed to help people re-locate changed how she saw change management Teams exist to fulfil a shared promise Emotional intelligence and Somatic intelligence inform a lot of the work she does with teams She helps teams navigate, manage and expand their emotional literacy at work She discussed how the way we show up as leader determines whether people chose to follow us, be repelled by us or move away She pays attention to the shapes of conversations-context matters, setting & environment matters, linguistic ability matters etc.. One myth we need to debunk is the notion that we can ask for certainty in a world that is VUCA, instead we need to equip leaders and teams to be resilient, to be flexible and agile not just intellectually but emotionally as well. We have to be able to pivot Understand Politics and Power do not be blindsided by both Terrie described her approach working with teams. She engages the leader first, then she has interviews/conversations with individual members and then with the team as a whole to work out their shared promise, their ways of working and the kinds of conversations that are missing between members. She is minded that the team need to understand what will satisfy their customers and stakeholders-do they know? Teams form but they do not necessarily have the conversations to shape their interactions or how they will be together, especially in times of breakdowns There is a sort of take it for granted approach to team norms She encourages teams to take a look at the missing conversations the members are not willing or are uncomfortable to have together She shared a word coined by Chalmers Brothers “Carefrontation” as a substitute for difficult conversations, asking how we care about our promise, our working agreements, our care for a supportive environment, our missing conversations She opined that there is too much suffering in our organisations that could be resolved by better quality conversations. Often individuals on teams need to question their own patterns, beliefs about teams, how they self-sabotage, what stores they live etc..this awareness can improve the quality of team life Terrie shared the work of Judith Glaser, called conversational intelligence and how science shares that our emotions precede us and impact how another reacts to us. We need to be mindful and aware. This is a great book to understand how to learn new and effective powerful conversational rituals that primes the brain for trust, partnership and mutual success. Terrie shared 3 nuggets for teams to consider-What is the shared promise for the team? Watch your mood and do a self-analysis on the conversations this team will not engage.   Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation   Chalmers Brothers; Language and the Pursuit of Happiness The Institute for Generative Leadership Https://generativeleadership.com Judith Glaser; Conversational Intelligence    

Introduction: This episode showcases the business of Leadership and what good leaders need to notice in our current VUCA world. Conor Brennan is CEO of Arachas Corporate Brokers in Ireland. He says his role as a CEO, isn’t just to make sure we have the expertise and resources to make good on the promises we make every day, it’s to make sure our people truly understand the role they play in being there for our customers when they need us most. Conor was formerly  CEO of Zurich UK General Insurance & CEO of Zurich GI in Ireland. He held roles as Deputy CEO Chambers Ireland and roles in print and media with a BA Hons, Commerce and Communications from Dublin City University.   Podcast episode summary: This episode discussed Leadership and some of the needed competencies for leaders today. The conversation spoke to the importance of societal change and its impact on business, especially the war for talent. The insurance business of which Conor is apart can be seen as traditional and hierarchical often with a legacy of heroic leaders. That way of leadership is changing.  Conor did not dream of being in Insurance he almost fell into Insurance after a significant period working as Deputy CEO for Chambers of Ireland He loved his degree in college, it was new and exciting to be in communications in an Ireland that was a two station TV nation, a country governed by the Church where much of Ireland was really insular.  He quickly appreciated the power of reading and reading voraciously to equip him in Business To him the construction of business leaders is broadly governed by societal changes.  Generational understanding is critical. Important to be able to listen, the new generation of workers expect this as a minimum, it also allows for collective intelligence leading to better decision making  Leaders have to be mindful of the generational mix in business and to ensure the wider system is respected.  Quality of debate seen in recent Brexit talks by our Taoiseach, Simon Coveney and Helen McEntee was inspirational & speaks to the brilliance and educational minds of our young leaders We are not having harmless conversations about climate change anymore and people like Greta Thunberg and our own young protesters are heralding a sea change in our response to this crisis-shows how the opinion of the next generation is feeding into our contemporary conversations  Impact of Brexit is having an impact on the war for talent. With companies choosing Ireland over the UK as a centre along with Direct Foreign Investment means tightness with respect to labour.  Demands of younger generation & what appeals to them from a career perspective much different to what was. Purpose paramount, ethics essential, continuous learning, flexible work conditions/terms and older workers mean a lot to consider over financial remuneration  Leaders have to be congruent and you have to believe in your intentions -audio has to match the video Behind language is action-tough challenges in a competitive market means much greater need for mature conversations on the top team Norms are important, respect, integrity, an ability to dialogue and appreciate difference Leaders need to mind their inappropriate use of EGO Conor’s Leadership Style is inclusive, and he works hard to bring diverse opinions into the room to form better decisions. He ensures the conditions on his team allow for mature and respectful conversations where a common and shared view of the business is held.  Conor shared his journey into Leadership and how preparation, passion and a willingness to invest in himself and change his style including getting coaching meant he could then assume greater and more responsible roles in Zurich. He was well resourced by Zurich in terms of leadership development  In hiring for his top team, he looks for attitude first. Technical skills are necessary but can be taught In terms of our VUCA world Conor helps leaders especially younger leaders to look less for perfection and encourage other intelligences including listening to their gut Conor draws inspiration from many sport’ teams and he is especially proud of the Dublin GAA. He cites a story where a player came off the pitch after a major win and in the moment did not recall the point win, instead he noted the team’s performance.  Conor admires the naturalness, connected nature of high performing sports teams who do the right thing. He sees harmony and symphony as necessary prerequisites to teams’ performance in our complex networked world.  Conor is a big fan of coaching and he employed team coaching for his top team at Arachas. Getting team members to get at mutual goals is hard work and a continuous practice  Culture change is hard and rewarding but it must be worked with commitment and effort.  Conor’s top 3 tips or nuggets for teams include  Be appropriate with your ego  Work with people that stimulate you and challenge you Have fun    Quotable Quotes: “helping people do their best work elsewhere” “Be appropriate with your ego”    Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation   Prisoners of Geography  Unauthorised Biography of Tiger Wooods  Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood 

Introduction: Sue McDonnell is an Irishwoman working in Sydney Australia. She is an Executive Coach, Team Coach, Facilitator and Energy alignment practitioner. Sue holds a degree in Sociology from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, a Postgraduate diploma in Business from University College Dublin, Ireland and she is also a qualified psychotherapist.    Podcast episode summary: This episode is a fascinating listen into the life of a Practitioner who is able to be vulnerable and open and as a consequence raise the consciousness of her clients. Sue McDonnell shares her approach to team work, speaks to real issue of trauma on teams and how she helps teams heal. She discusses dialogue and how she helps teams connect their being with their doing. Sue is honest about subjects like feedback, real conversations and our capacity to be truly honest with each other. This episode is packed with stories, anecdotes and practices that are practicable. A very real conversation I hope you enjoy   Show highlights:     Sue shares how she was a naturally sensitive child and was almost born into facilitation  She has an amazing manager in Eircom in the guise of Yvonne McWey who helped Sue really hone her passion for OD and Leadership Development  Sue decided to pursue a course in psychotherapy in a guest to really understand why for her she could not work with just anyone.  Journey from Head to Heart is often the longest one Sue suffered from Chronic fatigue and in her healing discovered that she was living in indecision which was tearing her. Teams often live the same way In Australia there is a cultural need to be mates. Teams often chose harmony over conflict with the shadow being that often team members are not able to have the robust and necessary conversations for change.  In Australia she finds that there exists a hierarchical and deferential with respect to power in culture s Sue employs the Adaptive Leadership Approach to her team work and approach she learnt from Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linksy in the US.  Their approach is to give the work back to the team and this message is essential as often teams project onto facilitators their need to be led.  Sue often starts a team engagement by simply asking “where do we begin?”  Upfront part of contracting is vital, and Sue conducts it with every member of the team. She is looking for the members appetite for the work, their measure of accountability and also a relationship so the work can start on a sound footing  Often our work as Coaches is to raise the heat on teams so that the team can see their stuck patterns and or have the conversations that are necessary Sue is very conscious that as facilitators and as coaches we need to do the work on ourselves first.  Team often have a vague idea of why they need support but often that comes by doing the work as is often the case with individual coaching  Sue used to work with teams where it was not prudent or wise to call what she was doing as mindfulness or meditation, now both of those terms are ubiquitous. Today she is seeing trauma in evidence on teams and in the work place and she imagines that in 5 years’ time that word will be commonplace too. Stress/Redundancies/ Fear/ are creating the conditions for the ego to be live. Competition between members is often acute.  Sue works on an individual basis with team members when she is doing team coaching and as part of that work, she helps members understand their biases/beliefs/behaviours in terms of their story of origin. This then helps more mature conversations on the team.  Biggest problem people have is believing their thoughts. She helps team members reframe, get curious, be conscious and she does that through skilful questioning.  Sue shared some of her work on energy alignment and the practices she employs to help teams operate from a more open space.  She spoke to the continuum between selfless to selfish and how she encourages members to become self-full  Our work as coaches is to help team’s step back, reflect and pause which can often be counterintuitive in a fast -paced world.    Sue questions the veracity of feedback when she opines, we are not very self -aware or emotionally intelligent. She is keen to read a recent HBR article called feedback is flawed.  Much of our work is about disruption today. She was working with a team whose purpose it was to help other organisations disrupt themselves but curiously that same team had a very high score in “pleasing” the message is clear we need to be conscious of our own drivers/biases and patterns before we can help others.  Sue does use tools and she respects that many tools serve a useful purpose and for her are gateways to more powerful conversations. She uses Lominger, the Leadership Circle and Kantors dialogue model. She explained how she helps teams get confortable in the use of her models and tools  What she particularly loves about Kantor’s model is that for her it is practical, easy to teach and an approach that is non-judgemental but enormously helpful for teams to see their communication patterns and preferences. Often by its use Teams get comfortable in their increased appreciation for difference and the consequence is not only behavioural change but a growth in psychological safety.    Quotable Quotes: “Journey from the head to the heart is often the  longest” “Our role as facilitators is to first wake up” “working with teams from success to significance” “95% of people come to work to do a good job” “often our biggest problem is believing our thoughts” “there is nothing more protecting that an open heart”    Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation   The practice of Adaptive Leadership, Tools and tactics for changing your organisation and the world by Ronald A, Heifetz, Marty Linksky and Alexander Grahsow  The Leadership Circle, a profiling tool for Leadership Development www.leadershipcircle.com  Lominger Assessment Instruments and the Lominger Competency Model  Kantor Institute www.kantorinstiute.com 

Introduction: Curtis Watkins and Dan Newby are the Co-Authors of the book Field Guide to emotions a practical orientation to 150 essential emotions. Curtis is a Master Certified coach; a Master Somatic Coach and his focus is primarily dedicated to supporting individuals and teams be more connected to a purpose and meaningful work. Dan is an educator, facilitator and Coach and also author of several books on emotions. He is a global champion of emotional literacy working with teams and individuals to leverage a gift available to all as part our human condition Podcast episode summary: This episode looks at a domain of learning that is often overlooked, Emotional literacy. Over the course of the conversation Dan & Curtis explained the auspices for their book, the usefulness of emotions as a domain for better decision making and congruence for individuals and teams. Dan explained that emotions are energy and they speak up for met or unmet needs in a person. Using personal stories and their own experience in compiling this book Dan & Curtis helped demystify the nature of emotions, the connectedness to our bodies and our mind and shared practical tools and exercises to decode emotions for more aligned choices.  Dan & Curtis joined forces to share their respective expertise in Somatic intelligence & emotional literacy to write the book called a field guide to emotions, a practical orientation to 150 essential emotions.  The choice to write the book as a field guide seemed appropriate as a tool for discovery because emotions are interpretations and can register differently for different people.  Emotions are not discretionary you do not have a choice about having emotions, but you can design to visit more or different emotions more frequently. You can learn and design your life  The invitation is to notice, observe how emotions arise in our bodies, watch for the intelligence they share & the possibilities they present and ultimately build a vocabulary of emotional understanding  Emotions are invisible to us. The only way we know to know them is by the sensations they create in our bodies or through the thinking we have around them.  One reason why you might begin to appreciate their usefulness is to think about the persistent woeful Gallup results produced year on year about engagement at work. 87% of employees are disengaged and 13% of that total are actively disengaged or sabotaging work efforts. The lesson here is that if we are not in touch with our emotional states, we can walk around in a disengaged manner not fully appreciating why.  A leaders’ role is to create the context for enthusiasm to be present  You can practice and design emotional states to have a better life.  We need to bust the myths that emotions are fixed and not learnable or malleable  A huge proportion for our emotional state is learnt.  Advice to be curious about emotions and to appreciate they are indicators of needs being met or unmet Two emotions that the authors visited were Faith and Prudence. In fact, the authors had fun deciding what classified and met the threshold to be a genuine emotion.  There are no universal definitions of emotions, the authors had to agree what fit an emotion and they determined emotions had to have 3 characteristics, A story, an impulse and a purpose this then made the field guide a very practical manual for readers to decipher their own emotions  Emotions also have a time orientation so we can group emotions in 3 ways, emotions that fit the past, present and future In terms of their use with teams Dan and Curtis shared exercises and conversation that they both have with teams where the ultimate goal is to normalise emotions and be in choice about what decisions to take and what direction in which to move.  Joy is an emotion that is often absent on teams -there is no regular celebration of moments, achievements or milestones. There tends to be a wait for the seismic moment and the predominant mood or emotion is about being serious.  Curtis would love to see more teams be connected to a cause or purpose greater than the individuals concerned. Enthusiasm, or connection to the divine, which is deeply connected to cause or mission for a team.  Emotional literacy is not common place although It might make eminent sense. The first trick is to notice, name the sensation or suspected emotion and then build understanding and finally navigate -all of this is a commitment to a process that over time yields emotional literacy.  Quotable Quotes: “Emotions are non-discretionary” “Everything about emotions is an interpretation” “Emotions are invisible to us “ “Huge proportion of our emotional identity is learnt” Emotions are that which put you in motion or want you to move”    Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation Newby, Dan., Watkins, Curtis. (2019) The field guide to emotions a practical orientation to 150 essential emotions. Available on Amazon & Kindle  Newby, Dan. Nunez, Lucy. (2017) The Unopened Gift: A primer in Emotional Literacy Newby, Dan. Nunez, Lucy. (2018) 21 days to Emotional Literacy: A companion workbook to the Unopened Gift.  Marshall Rosenberg founded the centre for non-violent communication  Rosenberg, Marshall B. (2003) Nonviolent Communication: A language of life  Gallup Employee Engagement Survey, www.gallup.com 

Introduction: Adrian Gostick is a New York Times best-selling co-author of The Carrot Principle and All In, which are sold in more than fifty countries around the world. He is the cofounder of the global training firm The Culture Works, with a focus on Culture, Team Work and Engagement. As a leadership expert he has been called “fascinating” by Fortune Magazine and “creative and refreshing” by the New York Times. Gostick has appeared on NBC’s today show and on CNN and he is often quoted by the Economist, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. In addition, if you google the 30 Top Leadership Global Guru’s he is ranked number 3, behind Tony Robbins and in front of Simon Sinek. I was thrilled to host him on the Game of Teams Podcast Series.    Podcast episode summary: This show illuminates the five disciplines Leaders need to deploy on teams for high performance. Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, NY times bestselling authors for their books “all in “and “the Carrot Principle “researched over 850,000 engagement surveys to determine just what is takes to drive performance and improve engagement in organisations. Adrian shared many vignettes and stories to reveal the new proven methods leaders can use to build productive teams despite the distractions and challenges every business is facing. Managers and Leaders need to embrace the “soft stuff”   The Five Disciplines revealed from the Book the Best Team Wins include:    Understand Generations–There are real differences in how generations like to be motivated that is perilous for leaders and organisations to ignore.  Manage to the One. This might sound counterintuitive to organisations and leaders that for ages have been treating people as the same. In today's world especially for Milllennials and for Generation Z they want to know that their motivations and needs are met.  Speed Productivity means helping teams and new people work faster and smarter Challenge Everything it is important the everyone has a voice and is able to inspire innovation through healthy discord.  Now, don’t forget your customer which is really about creating alignment around serving them. This breaks down silos and reminds people who the real customer is.    Adrian described his work and the work The Culture Works is asked to do for organisations. He was quick to point out that there is a lot written on teams, work that is still very valid and relevant, but he and his co-author Chester Elton wanted to find out what was new and different given the VUCA & digitised world, we live. They wanted to understand how engagement could be improved on teams to drive productivity. He spoke to the five disciplines described above and how deceptively simply they seem on paper but how often they are not practiced in reality. He urged managers and leaders to be comfortable and intimate with the soft stuff.    Adrian and Chester have just completed their latest book, a title on Gratitude in Business. They found some new science to show how a leader’s style can be improved by some very simple yet profound techniques.    Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation Gostick, A. Elton, A. The Best Team Wins  Gostick, A. Elton, C. The Carrot Principle Gostick, A. Elton, C. All In Deloitte Human Capital Trends 2018, citing the percentage of Millennials in the workforce.  Hackman, J.R. Leading Teams  Lencioni, P. The five dysfunctions of teams  Google's Project Aristotle, 5 keys to team Success  Edmondson, A. Teaming, Extreme Teaming, and the fearless organisation

Introduction: Georgina Woudstra is an ICF Master Certified Coach (only 1% of coaches are qualified to this level) and she specialises in chief executives and senior leadership. Georgina has more than 20 years’ experience and a proven track record coaching CEOs, executive boards and other senior individuals and top teams.Georgina has been described by clients as having “strong presence and credibility”, as being “experienced and wise” and a coach who “has extraordinary empathy” allowing her to be “challenging but gentle” This show and conversation reveals Georgina as she is found by clients.    Podcast episode summary: In this episode Georgina Woudstra MCC, shares her thoughts on the world of teams, the challenges they face given our VUCA reality. She opines that leaders need to develop a more sophisticated model of Leadership whereby they can step back and pause & have the courage and presence to help their teams step back as well. Georgina goes onto expand on the role of Team Coaches, clarifying the distinction between Team Coaching and Team Facilitation. Her story illuminates that distinction with alacrity. There is of course a role for team facilitation but there needs a wiser alignment between the outcomes a team is seeking and the intervention chosen.  Our VUCA world is real. It shows up in our being overstretched, reactive, under pressure where it is hard to pin down long term strategy and it contributes to our being filled with anxiety Leaders need to cultivate a stance where they have the confidence and presence to pause and reflect rather than persist with blind devotion to a plan or pace of current business activity-they need to have confidence to create intentional interruptions  Georgina would love for teams to be set up for success. This means the team being well designed  Coaching and Team Coaching is a journey over time- often times Team Coaches get a distress call from a sponsor to help a team get unstuck. Too often Team Coaches are tempted to start to fix rather than contract for a better way.  Georgina shared her approach to team coaching and the steps she takes in the initial engagement. This involves resisting urge to simply provide a half -day intervention but to influence for appropriate amount of time, to seek to influence Leadership and to understand the authority power dynamic on a team.  She often aims to work with the team leader first to understand style, decision making and how accountability is honoured Her quest is to determine who is responsible for the Coaching Journey She urges Coaches to slow down & invest more time upfront in contracting phase Team Coaching is about transitioning a team to take ownership for their outcomes and their process so that they absorb the team coaching over time.  Georgina shared a story where her team coaching style, presence and the competencies involved in team coaching were evidenced.  She emphasised the importance of a team coach cultivating their capacity to work in an emergent way, to work in the moment using team coaching competencies rather than in a pre-planned or pre-determined way.  Important to work with team in its own context –context affects behaviour and often team away days are more of an abstraction. Hard for team to mine learning’s back in the day job.  Georgina shared her 3 pieces of wisdom for Team Leaders and Team Coaches. She encouraged us to – Move from doing to being- drop our attraction to tools and models and instead cultivate a capacity to be present to what is.  Embody team- coaching competencies. Her studio has identified 15 different competencies that need to be fully integrated.  Practice-Practice-Practice    Georgina ended our conversation sharing how she is enjoying the work of collaboration. She sees a world that is moving towards a greater degree of collaboration over competition, which she believes, is both powerful and graceful. Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation International Coaching Federation www.icf.com  ITS www.itsnlp.com  Executive Coach Studio www.executivecoachstudio.com  Georgina Woudstra www.georginawoudstra.com 

Introduction: Dr Simon Western is CEO of Analytic Network Coaching, Adjunct Professor University College Dublin and President International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations. Simon has international experience as an academic, leadership coach and strategic consultant. He delivers numerous keynotes on the topic of “New Leadership for new Times” He has authored 3 acclaimed books, Global Leadership Perspectives with Eric-Jean Gautier, Leadership a critical text (3rd Edition), and Coaching and Mentoring a Critical text, 2nd edition. Simon challenges conventional wisdom and offers insights into how leadership is changing in light of the digital age   Podcast episode summary: In this episode Simon speaks to the need for a more humanitarian approach to leadership remembering to put the Human at the heart of any project. He shares his analysis of Leadership and in particular the 4 discourses of leadership encountered over the last 100 years. The Eco-Leadership is necessary for our digitised and networked society and to address the many complex challenges we face today, such as Climate Change.   Noteworthy points of discussion Simon adopts a very practical approach to his work. He considers himself an anthropologist in organisations looking and listening for what needs to emerge. He adopts a critical questioning approach, informed by his understanding of Critical Theory, Networked Theory, Social Movement theory and Psychoanalysis. Because of the frenetic pace of work and the demands made of us many people are struggling to find their authentic selves. Simon supports clients to really “experience their experience” and his methodology can be described as a process of journeying through 5 Frames of analysis: The Depth Frame, The Relationship Frame, The Leadership Frame, The Networked Frame and finally the Strategic Frame. This approach disrupts people’s conventional way of doing things, too often rational, linear and flat. Simon shared the evolution of leadership over the course of the last 100 years to comprise Four distinct discourses. These discourses include, The Controller Leadership discourse, which often dehumanises the workplace, the Therapist Leadership discourse, making work more democratic and looking at what motivates people to the Messiah Leadership discourse as a way of leading that asks for a transformational leader, someone who is visionary and can signal a purpose for the entity, that others follow to finally the last discourse called the ECO Leadership discourse. This discourse is a Meta theory, which is about getting the other three discourses in balance in an organisation. Progressive leaders and organisations see the need for understanding Eco Leadership, they appreciate we are living in an Eco-System, a networked society but making the transition from the other leadership discourses is not easy. It is a mindset shift. Often pressures on teams’ forces people inexorably back to the controller leadership discourse of the comfort of the Messiah and Therapist discourse. Important to hold the tension, to pause, reflect, question and look awry We are not taught in a way to appreciate systems, to think spatially and to question. Our education system encourages individualism and siloed thinking. We are experiencing a paradigm shift forced on us by digitisation and it is important for us to adapt, for Simon this means people need to put themselves into the world and not retreat, to “experience the experience “and to be real. Curiosity is key.   Resources: the following include the resources we alluded to over the course of our conversation analyticnetwork.com Leadership a Critical Text (3rd Edition) 2018, by Western, Simon Coaching and Mentoring, a Critical Text (2nd Edition) by Western, Simon Global Leadership Perspectives, Western, Simon and Gautier, Eric-Jean, 2018

Dr. Paul Lawrence discusses the complexity of teams and importance of dialogue for change. He differentiates team coaching from other methods and emphasizes the need for coaches to manage their own anxiety. The episode gives an honest and insightful look into the evolving discipline of coaching and the potential of team coaching.