Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

Is a resilient team the result of putting resilient individuals together? Does everyone in the team need to have the same level of resilience? What makes a resilient team resilient? All these questions get answered in the new episode of The Melting Pot this week. We’re learning from Dr Adam Stoverink and Bradley Kirkman, co-authors of Unbreakable: Building and Leading Resilient Teams, the book considered by Forbes as the number one team leadership book to read in 2023. Bradley and Adam’s work and research projects revolve around teamwork, leadership, and cross-cultural management. They have done a lot of research on resilience in teams and individuals, and they have come up with four things that you need to have in place to build resilient teams. One of them is psychological safety, but you might find the other ones surprising. In this episode, they start by explaining what resilience is and why you would want resilient teams in your organisation. For them, it’s about bouncing back when challenged. What if somebody leaves? What if a project they're working on doesn't succeed? Which teams dust themselves down and come back stronger? That's what team resilience is about. So it’s definitely a worthy goal in building a high-performing team.  Fantastic conversation with Adam and Bradley. Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Defining resilienceResilient individuals VS resilient teamsThe impact of purpose on resilienceThe four qualities of resilient teamsThe importance of diversity in teams Follow Bradley Kirkman & Adam Stoverink:Adam Stoverink on LinkedInBradley Kirkman on LinkedInBradley on TwitterBradley Kirkman’s websiteUnbreakable3D Team Leadership: A New Approach for Complex Teams Book recommendations: The Fearless Organization Grit: The Power Of Passion and PerseveranceSwitch Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review  

This week on The Melting Pot, we learned from speaker and award-winning author, Greg Orme. Greg was the founding CEO of London Business School’s Centre for Creative Business. He was named one of HR Magazine's Most Influential Thinkers in 2022. His book The Human Edge, how curiosity and creativity are your superpowers in the digital economy, won Business Book of The Year 2020. Today he helps leaders and teams thrive in a world of accelerating change through creative thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit. In this episode, Greg talks about the four pillars of his book The Human Edge. What does it mean to drive psychological safety and performance in an organisation? He talks about leadership and why it’s so important for them to have purpose and be able to create purpose in an organisation. Leaders can help foster creativity, curiosity, collaboration, and communication. Also, he discusses the importance of storytelling to drive change, and that is the antithesis of crafting a PowerPoint deck and ‘cascading’ it down through the business.  Fantastic conversation with Greg.  Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Helping leaders thriveWhat’s your leadership style?How to capture your purposeThe power of storytelling Follow Greg Orme:WebsiteLinkedInThe Human Edge Book recommendations:The SparkEnjoyed the show? Leave a Review  

 This week we learned from the Chief Workplace Scientist at Gallup, Jim Harter. Jim is also the co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Wellbeing at Work and the No. 1 Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller, It's the Manager. Now, he’s written another book, Culture Shock, where he explores how organisations adapting to this culture shock will determine whether they thrive or even survive and whether U.S. and global productivity will go up or down. Jim has been studying human behaviour in organisations for 37 years and really gets a kick out of studying what happens inside them. His work at Gallup is to study what happens in the populace at large and to do massive polls of the world and workplaces around the world and understand what's going on in people's work and lives. Last year, Gallup did a daily survey throughout COVID, and fifteen thousand people take part in their quarterly survey, so they got some fantastic data. That’s why we wanted to invite Jim to The Melting Pot to find out what that data said about working from home versus being fully remote, or hybrid.  In this episode, we learned how many days in the office drive engagement. Also, do higher levels of engagement translate into better financial performance? How do we make business more productive and outperform our competitors? We also dig into the data about working from home versus in the office, and we find out what are the five things that drive wellbeing as humans, how to structure one-to-one meetings, and how often they should be. And finally, what are the top five things that we should talk about with our teams every week to drive high levels of engagement. An absolutely fantastic conversation. Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Culture ShockThe effect of COVID on engagementThe five elements of wellbeingFully remote, fully on-site and hybrid. What’s best?The managers are key to driving engagement Follow Jim Harter: Jim Harter - GallupLinkedInCulture Shock2023 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award Winners Book recommendations:Wellbeing at WorkIt’s The ManagerMaslow on Management Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review 

How can we generate thousands of ideas in your organisation? Feel overwhelmed just by thinking about it? Our guest on the podcast this week thinks that, if you can’t come up with thousand ideas, you’re unlikely to come up with a winner. That’s why he suggests creating an innovation tournament. This week on The Melting Pot, we learned from Dr Christian Terwiesch, professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and Chair of Wharton's Operations Information and Decisions Department. Christian has written numerous business books but, in this episode, we wanted to learn more about his latest work, The Innovation Tournament Handbook. This book is a more practical approach to the theory he laid out in his first book, Innovation Tournaments.  In this episode, Christian explains how to run an innovation process in your business and how to build an innovation tournament so that you’re running one every six months. That means lots of people get involved with loads of ideas emerging, all in a relatively low-cost way. He also talks about the importance of destigmatising failure in innovation and why we need to embrace it as part of the process of innovation.  Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: What is innovation, reallyThe Innovation TournamentRemoving the stigma of failure in the innovation processGetting the whole team involved in the innovation processThe innovation dilemma Follow Christian Terwiesch:WebsiteLinkedInThe Innovation Tournament HandbookOther books Book recommendations:The Arsenal of DemocracyInnovation TournamentsConnected Strategy Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review

How do you manage your metrics around innovation? How much investment do you need to put into innovation as a mature business? How do you give people the time and structure needed to innovate in your business? This week we asked one of the most influential strategy and innovation experts to come back to The Melting Pot to answer these and some other questions about innovation. Founder and CEO of Strategyzer, Alex Osterwalder reckons that seven out of ten projects that you start within your business need to be killed. And maybe one in ten of your innovation projects is a go, but you're going to need to build a portfolio of maybe 50 live projects that are at any one time to get enough innovation going in your business to make a material change, to get a return on your investment. He also introduced us to the concept of AKIs (Aspirations and Key Insights) – as opposed to Objectives and Key Results – for innovation teams not to produce results, but key insights to understand whether they should kill, iterate or scale a product. Fantastic conversation with Alex. If you’re in the innovation arena, this is a must-listen for you. Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: What’s the ideal innovation teamHow and when to kill your innovation ‘zombie projects’How to ‘fail faster’ in innovationGetting the best ROIAKIs (Aspirations and Key Insights) vs OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) Follow Alex Osterwalder:Strategizer websiteLinkedInTwitter - @alexosterwalderHigh Impact Tools for TeamsThe Invincible CompanyTesting Business Ideas Book recommendations: The Courage To Be Disliked Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review 

This week we learned from the inventor of the Outcome-Driven-Innovation (ODI) process, Tony Ulwick. Tony developed this process and, in 1999, he described it to Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma. Although Clayton loved it, he didn’t like the idea of customers having a process, so he called it Jobs-To-Be-Done. Every customer has a job to be done, so what we can do is innovate around solutions to help them get that job done.  What’s the job your customer is trying to get done? And how do you measure success? In this episode, Tony guides us through the process that innovators need to answer those questions, and he shares some interesting case studies of how he’s helped different firms understand what jobs their customers were trying to get done, and how to identify their unmet needs.  A fascinating conversation with Tony.Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: The Jobs-To-Be-Done TheoryHow can you define a needThe cases of Bosch and ConagraHow your customers measure successUnderstanding the job that your customer is trying to get done Follow Tony Ulwick:WebsiteLinkedInJobs To Be Done - Book and Audiobook Book recommendations: What Customers Want Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review

Is there any fractured relationship in your team? Many teams have people with dysfunctional relationships that show up in different ways. Often people find it difficult to solve problems. Somehow we find ourselves with a breach of trust, breach of contract, or competence. We believe one of our colleagues isn't competent, and it grows like an inverted pearl in an oyster or stone in your shoe. When this happens, people move away from those relationships or change companies. But if a business is a team sport, it's like taking the field to play football with only nine players against the opposition because some people on your team have a dysfunctional relationship.This week we talked with and learned from Doug Bouey, a coaching and facilitation veteran, recognised by Vistage/ TEC. His newest book, Fixing Fractures, creates a sure path to peace of mind and a quiet heart. Like Dominic, Doug holds a Gazelle’s (now Scaling Up) International qualification. He’s a master coach and, as part of his Vistage Chair life, Doug came across a facilitation technique to fix fractured relationships in business and life. So, he wrote his book Fixing Fractures, to help teams or individuals overcome these breaches of trust and help them build a high-performing team. In this episode, Doug guides us through his technique to help teams have these types of conversations and overcome this issue in their relationship. He explains the different levels or ‘gates’ of trust and how he helps individuals in businesses get to the bottom of their problems and what are the ‘Magic Five’ that need to be present during these ‘healing’ conversations. Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Fixing FracturesHow to fix dysfunctional relationshipsUnderstanding the breaches of trust in teamsTeam building workshopsThe Magic Five Follow Doug Bouey:WebsiteLinkedInFixing Fractures Book recommendations:Fierce Conversations by Susan ScottDifficult Conversations by Douglas StoneThe Science of Storytelling by Will StorrThe Status Game by Will Storr Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review

Why do we do the things we do? How did COVID truly affect our behaviour? Will our ability to empathise and connect with others ever fully recover? In a world of constant change and uncertainty, Dr Helena Boschi, a psychologist specialised in applied neuroscience, offers insight into how our brains are wired to react and cope and helps us make some sense of why we do what we do.In this episode, Dr Helena Boschi discusses why we do what we do, which is also the title of her book. She also talked about feedback, why we are doing it, and what the real impact is. She gives some interesting tips on how to do it, how it works, and how the brain absorbs the feedback we give people. We also learned about the entrepreneur’s brain and what drives them, the effect of COVID on our empathy and much more.  Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: “Every child is an artist”Why we do what we doThe Impact of COVID on our brainsWhy it’s so difficult to change our beliefsSomething is wrong with feedback Follow Dr Helena Boschi:LinkedInWhy We Do What We Do Book recommendations:One of the things that Helena recommends to the listeners is to read as much as they can and talk to everybody, “because everybody has got something to teach us”. In particular, she truly enjoys the work of these authors: David EaglemanRobert SapolskyDan ArielyDaniel KahnemanSimon SinekMathew Syed Enjoyed the show?  Leave a Review

Are you struggling to achieve successful digital transformation despite continuous training and collaboration? Find out how to unlock agile decision-making with the military-inspired command by negation technique and improve employee engagement with immersive training programs - all while boosting manufacturing efficiency through SAP systems.Marty Groover offers a unique perspective on the future of manufacturing. Drawing from his experience as a retired Navy officer and working in the manufacturing sector at Caterpillar, he has developed a deep understanding of the importance of technology integration and employee training. Now a partner and CTO at C5MI, Marty is dedicated to helping companies adopt Industry 4.0 technologies, creating smarter systems and more efficient processes. If you are a manufacturing leader, you will undoubtedly benefit from his insights, experience, and passion for innovation.In this episode, Marty explains how you can boost manufacturing efficiency by harnessing the power of SAP systems, and how to drive digital transformation in your workplace. Marty is an advocate for creating a culture of learning, so he discusses how you can cultivate effective leadership and change management in your manufacturing operations, and unleash agile decision-making with the military-inspired command by negation technique.A fantastic conversation with Marty. Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Transforming the manufacturing operations through strategic SAPBringing military systems to manufacturingUsing real-time tracking to improve efficiencyCreating a thriving learning culture by encouraging knowledge-sharing and regular upskillingOvercoming the problem of working in silos in business Follow Marty Groover:WebsiteLinkedInSpeed of Advance Book recommendations:Relentless by Tim GroverWinning by Tim GroverExtreme Ownership by Jocko WillinkYou Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review 

This week on The Melting Pot, we learned from Eric Maisel, creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches. He writes the ‘Rethinking The Mental Health’ blog for Psychology Today, which has more than three million views, and he’s the lead editor for the Ethics International Press Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry series. Eric is also the author of more than 50 books covering the areas of creativity, life, purpose, meaning, and mental health.Once upon a time, in a world filled with rules and orthodoxies, Eric discovered the power of self-forgiveness, purpose, and creativity. Growing up in a neighbourhood where the aftermath of World War II still lingered, he was instilled with the idea of being a resistance fighter against societal norms at a young age. This spirit of opposition led him to question the status quo and seek out his own life purposes. He faced the challenges of being a smart individual in a society that often sought to silence voices like his. Through this struggle, Eric learned the importance of embracing one's individuality and passions. Over time, he developed into a creativity coach, guiding artists and entrepreneurs on their journeys to self-discovery and success.In this episode, Eric talks about one of his books, Redesign Your Mind, and cognitive therapy, and how it works on your thoughts. In his book, Eric proposes a methodology for changing your thoughts or replacing them with something else. He also about entrepreneurs and how he coaches them, as well as artists, who he thinks share many things but are also very different. He shares some tips about how to get in flow, his thoughts about burnout, and how to live a better life and lower your anxiety.  Download and listen to learn more. On today’s podcast: Being smart in a non-smart worldWhy are people burnt out?The creative power of sleepThe trances of workingHow to redesign your mind Follow Eric Maisel:WebsiteLinkedInRedesign Your MindWhy Smart Teens Hurt Book recommendations:Eric has always felt that he is in the existential tradition, a specific philosophical and literary tradition. If you have lost your understanding of that, or have never encountered it, he recommends that you read the books by Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Camus, Orwell, and Kafka. Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review