S1: E1: An Introduction to Brilliant Teams
An introduction to the Art and Science of Brilliant Teams.
Welcome to this podcast, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Art and Science of Brilliant Teams with your host throughout this series Emma Clayton.
Over the coming weeks and months, Emma is going to be sharing everything she knows about the Art and Science of Brilliant Teams. Emma will be sharing all the practical, useful information and tools she uses with her clients and she will be teaching you how to build a brilliant team and culture.
Those leaders that invest in their teams and culture will be the organisations that will shine through all of the transformations, volatilities and uncertainties in the world. With a background in organisational psychology, and a long career in marketing and communications background, Emma knows that the one thing that is a red thread for all of it is 'when we know ourselves and we know other people better, we can communicate and we can collaborate and work together'.
In this week's episode, we explore what is meant by a "brilliant team".
What are the key elements and why is it so important to create and develop brilliant teams in your organisation?
When we talk about the Art and Science of Creating Brilliant Teams, what does that actually mean?
What does it look like?
How does that feel?
How can you spot it?
And more importantly, how can you create it?
Key topics I cover today :
What is a brilliant team? What does it look like? How can you spot it? 0:08
The importance of teams in organisational performance and why it’s important. 2:27
What is an effective team? 4:52
What are the elements of a brilliant team? 6:58
What are we doing to deliver high quality results? 9:32
How do you use the culture of your organisation to drive performance? 11:18
Teams that are proactive in fostering innovation and thinking creatively together are more likely to respond to unanticipated changes. 13:31
Accountability. 15:40
How to navigate change effectively. 17:43
What is meeting effectiveness? How do you measure it? 20:42
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SHOW NOTES:
S1 EP01: An Introduction to Brilliant Teams
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
TeamBuilding, Leadership, teamwork, Collaboration, Management, Business, Employee engagement, Organisational culture, Professional development, emotional culture, Team development, leadership development, High performing team, Team effectiveness, Team cohesion. Performance management, Conflict resolution, Personality assessments, Cross-functional teams, Emotional intelligence, Team performance
Hello, and welcome to this podcast, knowing me knowing you the art and science of brilliant teams.
And you know, I don't know about you, but every time I say knowing me knowing you, I want to go. Uh-huh. So I'm sure you'll hear that from me quite a lot. And you're probably saying to yourself, too, my name is Emma. Clayton and I will be your host throughout this podcast series.
And this is episode number one and our launch episode. I am so excited that I've done this for a start. I never thought that I'd ever do a podcast again. I never thought I'd ever do a serious podcast again. But more importantly, I'm just so excited that you're here joining me because, over the coming weeks and months, I'm going to be sharing every single thing that I know, all the practical, helpful information that I work with clients sharing, I'm going to teach you how to build a brilliant team and culture because God knows we need at the moment.
As I said in the opening trailer, the world is changing around us. And people really need help. And those people that really invest in their teams and their culture will be the people that will shine through all of these transitions and volatilities and uncertainties in the world. And I chose knowing me knowing you because I have an organisational psychology background on top of a marketing background and a comms background.
And the one thing that is a red thread for all of it is, and I really believe this is when we know ourselves, and we know other people better, and we can communicate, and we can collaborate and work together. That power is way greater than working on our own in frustration and outside of a team.
And as a team coach and Communication and Culture consultant. Everyone that knows me will say that I'm really passionate about behaviour and psychology and humans in the workplace. I've seen it done so well. I've seen it could have done better. And simple tweaks to how we go about things in our day-to-day working live make a difference.
And this is what this podcast is all about. I'm going to share this with you. I will open the door, take you back behind the scenes and educate you on all the little tiny things you can do with your teams because business is about people. If you get it right, you can and will soar. But if you get it wrong, it can be the most frustrating workplace.
And we've all had those experiences where we've just had so much frustration because we don't understand the people we're working with. And they're just doing our heads in. If you're a business leader, you could be a team leader, you can be part of a team, or you might even just be curious about what you could do to make your workplace more vibrant, collaborative and productive.
And I'm going to share some real-life examples. I have to be unable to say names because that would be unfair. But I will give you some great case studies, models, and practical advice. And I'm also going to get some experts because I've already earmarked them. They've already said yes, I'm going to bring them in.
But the first six episodes definitely will just be you and I together. I'm going to fly solo with you just as, and we're going to I'm going to go back to some basics before we start building on having those conversations with experts because of why we do what we do and behave the way we do. And when we have all of these tools to understand, it really equips us.
And actually, it's not just equipping us through our work life. It's equipping us through our whole life, our personal life; when I learned this stuff, it enabled me to work better in relationships and relationships around me because I understood myself and other people. I could understand why I clashed with people just as much as I gravitated towards others.
And that's why the podcast is called knowing me knowing you. Because when we know ourselves, we can really understand and explore the world around us in a much more excellent, positive way. And who doesn't want that? And, as I said, it's just you and I today and for the next few episodes coming, but it is two-way.
So I would love to hear any feedback you can give me, anything new you want me to share, and anything you're stuck on, good and bad. I want to, or I'm just a big, longtime lifelong learner. So I'm all about development. So any feedback, let's have that conversation.
This is more than just me talking to you for the next few episodes. So big thanks for tuning in. Thanks for being with me; we're going to have some fun; I will share some hilarious experiences of the teams I've been in. And I'm going to ask some of my friends about some of their experiences. And we will make fun of some of what could be a pretty frustrating scenario.
So let me tell you about what is to come. The first six episodes will just be you and I, but that's where we will explore the basics. So I'm going to almost teach you. And I don't mean to lecture you; I mean to share with you, educate you, and open the world up to psychology and communications behaviours.
And I will focus on the workplace, but all of the elements make a high-performing team, as I call them, a brilliant team. And I'm going to really unpack what I mean about the art and science of a competent team. And it's around the science of performance and the art of culture.
It's about the science of psychology and the art of those soft skill communications. Here's the caveat, I hate people calling them soft skills. They are the most powerful skills. These are the skills you see in, you know, those really successful people that have created amazing teams and businesses and organisations, leaders, world leaders, they've got those soft skills, but they're powerful skills.
And that's what's needed to build a brilliant team because it's not just about looking at performance. It's the way we work around here. It's the way we do things. It's about how we communicate; it's how we look after each other. And I will share some of the different models, tools, and thoughts around this.
And there'll be lots of different things I'm going to share with you about how you can implement it in your business and really try and test theories in your business practices. Because what I'm not going to do is, you know, do the big university lecture where it's all your own theory, I'm also going to really go through the pros and cons of some of these models, having worked with them, and the learnings I've had. So we're going to look at, you know, dysfunctional teams and difficult conversations and all of those experiences rarely, but without giving you the basics of, you know, what is good communication? What is the high-performing team?
How does psychology fit within this? How do we create our own behaviours? Then I'd need to give you the tools really to do that.
So I also wanted to share a little about myself with you because you're probably thinking more, Who is this woman? Why is she working in the recall about teams and Culture and Communications? I fell into this. I don't even know what I call myself. I call myself a team coach or team's Culture Communication Consultant because the bit that's missing in many organisations is you'll have HR doing, you know, workplace initiatives, you know, people engagement policies, you will have marketing doing a lot of external communications, building communications around, you know, value propositions and their brands, which is what my background always was.
And then you've got, you know, strategic input and my frustration in my career. I grew up as a marketeer. I worked in pharmaceuticals, and I went from sales to marketing. I got my Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification and led big billion-pound launches, education teams, and marketing campaigns.
And I was always and still I'm very, very strategic. I'm a big thinker. And the thing that would always frustrate me was that we had the best patterns. And I see this in so many organisations, the best plan the best strategies, and they needed to be implemented.
And when I started to really analyse and get curious as to why that was, and I'm sure you'll be nodding your head along if I say this because many do want to explain, it is that the people are at the front face that is out with the customers client-facing call centres, sales teams, whoever it is might be, don't really get the strategy. They need to learn what their role is and their responsibility in it.
And we get silos, and then we get people in fighting. And then they don't really understand what each other's doing, and they duplicate, or there are gaps. And then what was a really well-thought-out plan actually needs to be implemented. And if you think about the army, you know, they've got the generals, they've got their war map, this is where we go, this is how we're going to go. Let's charge ahead. But imagine that every soldier didn't know what their role was; there were many bodies on the ground. And I see that in organisations, that's what's happening.
And we're in a mark, as I record this, now, we're in a market where we've got a real lack of talent. And so, how can we take the resources we've got now and build brilliant teams? I will give you the tools to do that because silos are not well-demotivated.
People are not good. Communication and clarity are ultimately where we need to be focusing. Because if we can give our troops all the tools to perform well, then isn't that a great place to work? You're going to attract all the best talent, you're going to keep your best talent, and it's just going to be happier. So that is what we're going to be looking at. So the first thing I thought we would really unpack and demystify is this whole piece about knowing ourselves.
And my question to you today is, how self-aware are you? Do you understand what motivates you? Do you know what your strengths are?
Do you know what your development areas are? And have you really thought about your communication style? And the role that you play in a team or an organisation? Or even in your friendships? You know, how do you show up?
What behavioural shadow do you cast as you go through life once you know yourself? I say this from experience, and I say it from helping other people find themselves; it makes the rest of everything we do so much easier to understand and implement navigate.
And it's almost like a light goes on; a light bulb illuminates the way forward because you understand what's good for you.
And I see many people without boundaries because they don't understand themselves, or they don't, you know, understand what motivates them.
So, believe me, this stuff is golden. Every client I've ever worked with always says this is the best bit; it's illuminating. And it's motivating. And you know, ours, it's your favourite subject, it's you, we all love to know more, and think about and talk about ourselves, don't we? So that's what we're going to do, we're going to look at, we're going to get you to know yourself.
And then we're going to look at all the different tools you can use to understand yourself; there are so many out there, it isn't apparent. They've all got pros, they've all got columns, there are some fun tools, there are some free tools, there are some painful tools. I will help you find the best assessment tools for your situation for your organisation.
And then I'm also going to share various tips and tools and techniques and frameworks and methods and all sorts of things, as I said, that will help you understand those around you in your organisation. So you can develop better, more authentic relationships and facilitate them from the people around you.
Because once we know ourselves and understand others, we can help others to do the same. Think of it have layers where you know the first layer is you.
Then the second layer is other people. And then actually the next day as well. We work together, we harmonise, and we collaborate. That's going to be at the heart of the podcast. If you're not a geek on psychological tools, that's okay, but you got to have some interest in them.
Otherwise, this may not work for you because I'm discussing it often. And it will be, like I say, part of the DNA of all our conversations. That's it; I will build this podcast as a library of resources.
If I see a tool that works in a particular situation or an instrument or a book, I will share them with you, and my website, www.brilliantteams.org, is where you can hear specific episodes. And the thing I love about podcasts and the thing I'm going to do, and I've got a fantastic producer who's going to help me with this, is we're going to do show notes, we're going to make deep, detailed show notes.
So all the resources, advice, links, recommendations, and transcriptions from everything I told Talk about will be available there. The final thing I wanted to share with you is why I started this podcast because I'm asking myself where I was before; okay, I'm here now, and I'm loving it. I'm excited to do this with you. But it's pretty daunting when you start a podcast because you're putting your thoughts, beliefs, and opinions into the world.
And you are still determining how it's going to land. So you've got to be motivated to do this. The biggest motivation for me doing this was because I looked at finding a podcast that could really capture the essence of how to build a brilliant team. And I was looking for validation of my own opinions. And like we ow, thoughts and my beliefs on this, and I couldn't find anything.
There were podcasts on team performance, culture, and internal communications; I need help solving the problem of building a brilliant team because that's what I get asked a lot. And that's why my business is called brilliant teams. You know that is the essence of what I do.
And it's a harmonisation of all those things of performance, and Culture and Communications. And that's where I don't know what to call myself because I take all elements of all those three things, and you'll get experts in each of those three things. I have never found anybody like me who can do all of those three things together and get a broad and deep understanding of the people around me and how they work together in an organisation.
The second reason, probably more important, is that when you look at the explosive growth of the coaching, field, exec coach and leadership coaching, you know, there is this multibillion-dollar and pound industry where there's a massive amount of work going on that remains unregulated.
And I call them pandemic coaches; they sprung up out of nowhere, there were no qualifications and no rigour, and the generation of the Emperor's New Clothes was born. And so I have seen many people investing a lot of money in coaches that need to be qualified, that have the depth, understanding, and expertise, charging a lot of money and not delivering a lot.
And so having this free resource, this go to library for support for you to be a better leader, if that's you, or a better team player, if that's you. But wanting to create a better culture of collaboration without paying 1000s and losing money on a load of crap.
I wanted this to be your go-to sanity, good, solid, quality deliverables to help you. There we go. That's my big, big reason as well. And, you know, I also think we pay a lot of lip service to the importance of teams; I see that this is probably my third reason we throw people together, we say, Oh, I've, you know, got these people in, they can do Excel spreadsheets, they can do you know, selling, you know, these are the skills, but actually what we don't do is, you know, we don't really explore them as human beings. We roll the dice and hope for the best.
And I want to be able to share how you can get the best out of those people? And again, what motivates them?
What on a good day do they bring to the organisation, but on a dark day? What can they bring in? How can that be disruptive?
And how can we, you know, bring that in. So we manage the, you know, and limit the dark side of our personalities, which by the way, we all have, we all have a dark side; it's when we're frustrated or stressed or, you know, we have this side that comes out.
And if you're saying it's not you, I know you're fibbing. But we know we're doing little in that area where we're supporting teams.
We are supporting leaders, but I don't see anybody going in and supporting the team together as a unit; we will help individuals, but we never really go in and accelerate and develop the performance of that team over time.
So leadership coaching is not essential. It is now, but the leader is part of the team. And so we must provide both the leader and the team with support, and I haven't seen anybody do the team support really well.
So that's what I do. And it's part of the rationale. And it's part of the passion that I have. And the time is right because, as I record this, it's October 2022. The leaves have fallen from the trees, and I've not put the heating on quite yet because we're in this massive economic energy crisis. Sitting with a jumper on and energy prices are through The roof, and inflation is over 10%. The chancellor, the fourth Chancellor, is now in place for the last four months, was announced yesterday; the government have done to you tans with, you know, these tax cutting, recession busting or recession creating sorry.
I'm sitting here with a lot of anxiety about the world around me. And I know a lot of my friends in business, and I work with some huge global professional service companies also, you know, very cautious, anxious, and uncertain about the future.
And there is no doubt that on top of that, the world around us is changing. Because we have digital and technological transformations all around us. We can only sit still without another new way of working digitally or technologically. And, you know, yes, change is inevitable. It's totally unavoidable. I love change. But I know many people don't like change, and we need to help people on that journey.
We can't just say everyone's got to get on the train, everyone's got to start drinking the Kool-Aid, everybody's got to be part of this, because some people, you know, take longer, and resist, and they don't want to change. So we've got to meet people where they're at and take them on the journey. And that's definitely what I'm going to support through this podcast.
And, you know, digital is replacing some roles. And jobs are being lost because we're automating things. But I feel strongly; I'm not resisting digital; I love a bit of digital. But every organisation's competitive advantage is still people because people buy from people. Relationships are, you know, powerful and successful companies, whether it's with, you know, external stakeholders, clients, investors, shareholders, local government authorities, and internally.
And I believe, very strongly, and I haven't heard anyone say this yet. So if you agree with me, I'd love to hear. But this is where we don't make cuts with our people. This is different from where we create redundancies. This is where we double down on and invest in our teams because we need help finding and recruiting great people.
So we develop the ones we've got because those that do will be stronger, they'll play harder, and they will win in the markets; we don't win the war by cutting troops and stopping their training. That's my focus. That's precisely what this is all going to be. So if that hits you positively, then, you know, we're going to spend a lot of time together, hopefully.
And, you know, we've got a long way to go in boosting our understanding of what makes teams effective. And what you know accelerates that high-performing team, and it is the Holy Grail, and only some get it right ideally.
And when you do get it right, you've got to keep working at it. We don't just it does not just have a point in time where we get there and we stop; we have to keep working at it. Like we have to keep working on our relationships. So there's a lot of time going to be spent around that.
And like I say, we'll layer up and have conversations around the things that keep you awake at night; you know how to have those difficult conversations, build trust, and create collective goals. How do you think we're gonna look at some hot topics. I'm very passionate about women in the workplace and how we can support working mums. I'm a big advocate for multigenerational workplaces.
But again, gosh, that's, you know, going to be a vast topic to discuss: how can we create belonging and community with different ages and genders and cultural backgrounds. So we're going to tackle some of these significant gritty issues. And you know, anything else that keeps you awake at night where you think I'd really love some input, you know, I'm thrilled to record, you know, sessions and episodes around what you need, and what you think will really, really help you.
As I say, this will hopefully be a resource library for you to take away and try and implement just as much as you learn. So you can find me at Emma at brilliant teams.org. You can follow me on LinkedIn - Emma Clayton, Brilliant Teams there if you want to email me.
And also brilliant teams; it's got its own LinkedIn page. And my website is www.brilliant teams.org. And let's have that conversation. Tell me, you know, where do you need support? How well do you know yourself? What tools can you get to know yourself? And how can you build those relationships with the people around you at work and in life?
The next episode I'll bring you is about the basics of communication. So it's a little bit of a good understanding of what communications are, how we communicate, and our styles. So we can start to recognise our own preferences.
And like I say, those around, knowing me, knowing you. So have a great day wherever you are. I'll see you on the next episode, and just remember, Stay Brilliant. Bye for now.
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