Full Transcript for TCC - 3Ps - Padraig O'Sullivan

started team coaching when I was working with a UK organization called Praesta, and they hired one of the probably more famous team coaches around at the time, Peter Hawkins, to help train up everybody. 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:07.599 Peter had just written his first book on systemic team coaching, so he was going around starting to train organizations in in his thinking. 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:11.919 And so I've been that was that was my kind of entree into team coaching. 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:16.400 So I was very fortunate because I was quite young in my career, and I was quite young age-wise as well. 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:19.680 I was probably 35, maybe 36 or something. 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:30.080 But I was exposed to some really great coaches who were in their 50s, 60s at that time, who come out of very, very senior corporate roles across the UK and the Middle East and different places. 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:32.639 And then, of course, Peter was experimenting with his model. 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:39.280 So I got quite exposed to a lot of kind of experimentation because other people who don't know Peter may not know this. 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:43.360 Peter experiments a lot, and in fact, he encourages experimentation. 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:58.400 And in fact, one of his self- generated constraints for his own practice was to come up with a new idea or framework or model or activity every single time he worked with a team. 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:07.840 So he so by nature he became quite creative, and my style beautifully too, because that that I like doing new things and experimenting new things. 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:10.879 So that that's that's that's kind of where where I started. 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:17.600 Uh initially I was working alongside teams that my UK colleagues had engaged with. 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:26.879 So I was the second or third coach in a team of coaches, and then I took over the Australian and Singapore businesses for that organization. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:29.040 So I started working with my own teams here. 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:36.240 Typically, my practice has always been the leadership team of whatever organization I'm working with. 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:43.839 An organization could well be the Australian division of a multinational, which is where I did most of my work, particularly in the healthcare sector. 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:50.319 Or it could be the leadership team of, let's say, an education organization that's an Australian-based. 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:58.240 So it's not it's not a listed business on the Australian stock market, but it's the most senior team in that organization in an Australian entity. 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:03.519 Increasingly over time, I started working with regional-based teams. 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:13.040 So the let's say the the regional team in Singapore that oversaw Asia Pacific, and therefore it it had a range of country teams reporting to it. 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:20.560 So it was the Asia PAC or the Middle East and Africa leadership team for a particular organization. 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:26.079 So different types of teams, which in itself brought lots of learnings. 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:29.360 Uh, because you you said something up front that I think is really important. 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:32.079 Team coaching is not simple at all. 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:38.399 Team coaching, in fact, is actually quite complex and and there's a lot of nuances within it. 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:52.399 And the complexity doesn't mean it's it's more difficult, it just means that you've got to be hyper-aware to the different nuances, and so taking a one-standard approach, I think, is the fastest way to not get hard a second or third time. 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:53.360 Right. 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:54.879 Yeah, beautiful. 00:05:54.879 --> 00:06:14.639 So you're kind of leading us anyway into the philosophy piece because the philosophy piece is t a self-awareness piece around understanding our own beliefs and values and and and a recognition of how some of our experiences in the past shape how we do the work now. 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:19.519 And a typical philosophy question is what models and frameworks do you like? 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:28.560 But for me, that's not really the place to start because the question is, do you know why those models and frameworks, which kind of takes us back to the values, beliefs, experiences. 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:34.240 And you've talked already about some of those experiences starting 20 years ago and so on. 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.120 What can can you think of? 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.279 Can you elaborate on that a bit? 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:46.800 Are there one or two really key experiences from your time as a team coach do you think that have made a real impact on how you go about doing the work now? 00:06:48.720 --> 00:07:00.800 Going back to where I started, I was again fortunate to be able to sit alongside not just experienced coaches, because they were, but more importantly, they these are people who had led international businesses. 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:13.439 So therefore, I was being exposed to how senior government or senior corporate leaders thought about how a leadership team could and should work based upon their vast experiences. 00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:16.000 And that was a beautiful seat at the table. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:23.120 because this it's easy to think about a leadership team from reading an academic paper or reading a model about how it should work. 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:31.040 And some of that does apply, but a lot of it doesn't, because going back to the notion of complexity nuances. 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:41.519 So sitting in conversations with people who had like I had some friends of mine who were in Margaret Thatcher's government working side by side with her. 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:53.120 And so that kind of

exposure to high level of government involvement internationally was just, priceless. 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:59.759 So a lot of my early influence was influenced by them and the way they thought about leadership teams. 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:14.720 If I was to boil that down to two words, and I would certainly agree with this, and I certainly took this as my leading sense of purpose later, and that is leadership teams are there to provide clarity and confidence. 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:15.600 Yeah. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:27.360 And so those two words really influence a lot of how I think about my own philosophy and a lot of how I've discarded stuff over time, which I think is equally important to be able to go, you know. 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:29.759 I've experimented with X, Y, and Z. 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:32.799 I no longer believe that's useful for these reasons. 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:34.720 I think I find that to be equally useful. 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:41.919 But for if I think about my philosophy, if I start with a philosophy of a leadership team, is there to provide clarity and confidence. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:09:09.919 Clarity meaning clarity of direction, clarity of purpose, clarity of decision making, clarity of updates, and in the doing so to give confidence to their direct reports or to their stakeholders or to their customers or to their owners or to their more seniors, whatever the structure of the organization is, that that you know their their role is to engender a sense of these people on this team know what they're doing, and we are confident that we should follow their recommendations. 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:14.000 If you get those two things right, that's that's a pretty good start. 00:09:14.399 --> 00:09:25.600 So if I'm understanding you right, then that that shapes still where you where you're at where you pay attention and where you you you're more likely to end up doing the work with the team. 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:26.559 100%. 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:35.279 and and so if I give you a real live example, a lot of us who are in team coaching are very familiar with the Lencioni framework. 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:39.120 And on paper, it's got huge face value. 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:44.960 And no one will ever dispute that a team that trusts these aspects is a useful thing. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:47.279 You can't dispute that. 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:55.600 and so the framework that Lencioni put forward has huge face value. 00:09:55.600 --> 00:10:09.360 What I found though was starting with a newly formed team or a team with a new leader , starting with that framework in the absence of what are we here to do as a team? 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:15.519 What 's our purpose as a group in the sense of why does this organization need us to be in the positions we're in? 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:18.559 What's the mandate we've been given as a leadership team? 00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:26.879 So in the absence of clarity around those kind of things, starting with trust just became a motherhood statement in a lovely afternoon. 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:32.720 And quite often nothing ever happened or changed because there was no sense of clarity. 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:38.080 Yeah, there's a sense of clarity of I'm supposed to trust you, Paul, and time will tell whether I do or whether I don't. 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:40.159 Yeah, that's just human behavior. 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:47.759 But there's no other sense of clarity of here's what we're supposed to do, here's how we make decisions, here's who's involved in the decisions. 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:49.519 so that's all so. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:11:00.240 What I've learned over time is helping a team get a sense of clarity, and then therefore what they need to do together as a group, often that solves a lot of the problems that teams have. 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:12.559 Like, you know, the most common request from an organization for a team coach is can you help this team because you know, inverted commas, they're dysfunctional, inverted commas in whatever aspect of that word. 00:11:12.559 --> 00:11:22.559 And most of the time, in my experiences, whatever degree of dysfunctionality exists is because of a lack of understanding of what we're supposed to be doing and how we're supposed to be doing that. 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:27.120 If you can solve for that, you can solve for a lot of problems very quickly. 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:44.320 So that that reminds me of some of the early Hackman and Wagaman material where my interpretation of that material is they encourage people to focus on the team's purpose and not worry so much about team dynamics necessarily. 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:49.200 I'm not saying their perspective is quite as straightforward as that, but that's how I interpreted it. 00:11:49.200 --> 00:12:00.240 Whereas a lot of folks will go to team dynamics early doors because of the logic that says if the dynamics are good, then the team will perform better, including in in clarifying its purpose. 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:05.120 I'm hearing you lean more towards the Hackman and Wagman material. 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:10.399 Was that was that influential for you? 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:11.840 That was very influencing me. 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:20.559 It was the first time I ever really understood what is a leadership team supposed to do was was from a book that Hackman and Wageman wrote. 00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:25.200 That would give me a lot of because go back to where I started, I was early in my early 30s. 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:27.360 I didn't come off a global leadership team. 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:30.799 I'd never been on a global leadership team, so I didn't know what they did. 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:40.080 I had a lot of insight from sitting at the sidelines, and a lot of my colleagues had done it, so I'd learned from them, but I hadn't direct experience. 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:46.240 And I found that book that

they wrote, I can't remember when it was, late 80s, I can't remember when it was. 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:47.919 It was called Senior Leadership Teams. 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:51.600 that I found it to be 2005, that's when they wrote it. 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:53.679 Uh, I found it to be very, very helpful. 00:12:53.679 --> 00:13:02.240 And also following that, Peter Hawkins, his framework, he had a thing called a theory of team coaching, I think he called it. 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:07.679 His model had this notion of commissioning. 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:13.279 What is this team here to do, and how do they find out what they're here to do? 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:20.320 And if you don't know what that is, for as a leadership team, you can get very lost. 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:32.320 and so he he talked about clarifying purpose, goals, objectives, roles, but also commissioning, making sure the team has a very strong sense of here's what we're here to do and what we're expected to do and how we're going to deliver it. 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:38.399 If you start with team dynamics in the absence of those two things, you might get a good outcome. 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:42.720 But I think more often than not, you'd get a a lovely afternoon. 00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:54.399 So I'm hearing Peter Hawkins and Hackman and Wageman you were certainly very much influenced by by those works. 00:13:54.399 --> 00:14:00.480 What other ideas, models, frameworks have really resonated for you? 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:08.320 I'm gonna make a comment about Lencioni because like like a lot of coaches, I used his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:12.559 Almost every executive I've ever met had read it on an airplane somewhere. 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:19.200 and I tried it and I found it to be initially useful, but over time to not be helpful at all. 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:30.320 So I just want to make that note because there's some frames and models that come into vogue for whatever reason that have a degree of utility, but not necessarily sustainable utility. 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:31.759 So they're worthwhile playing with. 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:39.120 But I think it's the notion of being objective in terms of why am I using this model and is it getting an outcome that the team needs? 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:44.080 The important thing is that the team needs is is a really thing to do. 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.600 So I stopped using that, and I think I think it's just worth commenting on. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:54.799 the the biggest framework that's really influenced me over my career is Bob Anderson's framework on in the leadership circle. 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:55.600 Yeah. 00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:21.919 It's not about him, but the way he thinks about leadership, it's the way he found when he studied the leadership literature, again, from a competency point of view, looking at what competencies are attributed to overall effectiveness

for senior executives, and then what are the human dynamics that mitigate upwards or downwards with those competencies, he created his framework called Leadership Circle. 00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:40.799 I found that to be the most useful, not perfect, because no model is perfect, but I found it to be most useful at a senior executive level because it helps leaders understand very quickly where are they helpful and where are they likely to derail themselves or to at least be at least less effective. 00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:50.480 And then when you extrapolate that at a team, the conversations about when are we less effective as a group together, that becomes a very powerful conversation. 00:15:50.480 --> 00:16:02.960 And because of the way the that that framework is is structured, and because of the kind of the database and then all that kind of stuff, it's got a lot of face value and credibility at senior exec level. 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:19.279 It's not perfect, like every model is flawed, but I found that to be the most useful for really serious conversations that still point the team towards how do we be effective, and being effective meanings clarity and and giving confidence. 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:26.240 So I'm hearing a real focus around the clarity and confidence piece is part of your philosophy. 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:37.840 And I'm wondering, how would you say that your own like personal values and personal beliefs are part or integrated into that that philosophy? 00:16:43.200 --> 00:17:08.799 I started my career as a nurse and I think I was maybe a year, I think it was maybe a year graduated, and my colleagues were all reading like you know, nursing today magazine or whatever variation of that industry magazine was out there, and I was reading business magazines, and as my inclination was always to read about business. 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:28.799 And I got when I got my first promotion when I came to Australia in a hospital setting, the director of nursing said to me, I'm really intrigued as to why you became a nurse because clearly you're not gonna stay in it, you're gonna head into a management career quickly, which was the first time someone had kind of recognized something in me that I hadn't recognized at all. 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:30.559 I was just following interest. 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:51.519 So that's just a way of saying that my natural inclination has always been to be really interested in how come some leaders or some leadership teams or some businesses outperform their competitors or their peers when all the variables seem to be relatively similar and it comes down to leadership, it comes down to leadership effectiveness. 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.000 So I've always been fascinated with that. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:10.400 when I worked in in headhunting for the medical and pharmaceutical industry, I was doing 20 interviews a week for for executives, and my fascination was how come this candidate called Paul Lawrence is is so much better than the other 19 I've interviewed this week. 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.160 Like, what is it about that? 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:25.440 So my natural inclination has always been to understand what does effectiveness look like and how does that elevate the team that they're leading, and or how does that achieve the outcome the team is supposed to achieve. 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.920 So that's so that's what that's where I'm that's where I start. 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.000 That's that's my thinking always starts there. 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:47.359 The second part I would say is when I think when I'm when I meet a new CEO or new leadership team and they're asking me about how I work with the team, my starting point is always tell me your strategy as an organization so I can understand what the what the organization is trying to do. 00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:59.039 And then tell me the what this team, whatever team we're talking about, be it be it a country team or be it a global team or whatever team it is, what's the role of this team in that strategy? 00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:02.400 And then let's talk about dynamics later. 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:09.359 And that wasn't a designed sense of philosophy, it was just the way I just naturally think. 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:16.079 So if my brain just goes there, then naturally clarity and confidence are going to drop out of that very, very quickly. 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:25.920 so I've worked with many, many teams where the dynamics are less than positive, but it's a hyper-effective team. 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:34.079 And it's in the team achieves exactly what it's supposed to do, and the the the stakeholders of that team are really, really happy with the outcomes of the team. 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:39.680 Now, I would never choose to work in that team, but that doesn't mean it's not a good team, right? 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:51.599 Whereas if if we approach it from a a dynamics in interpersonal relationships perspective only and nothing else, many of us, myself included, would say, oh, this this team is very dysfunctional. 00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:56.079 So I think the philosophy really sheds a light on that. 00:19:56.400 --> 00:20:17.680 So I'm hearing, if I'm understanding you right, I'm hearing a curiosity, I'm hearing curiosity as being a value, perhaps, and and a belief that perhaps you already had before before that early work with Praesta, or or a focus on outcomes, or a belief that you can add most value by really focusing on those outcomes. 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:22.160 Well, I I do believe that business in general is a positive thing. 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:39.039 Like I really think you know the two big major, major shifts at a global level are education and commerce in terms of uplifting people out of out of any kind of poverty or any kind of you know, lifting people into a higher level of productivity or personal income. 00:20:39.039 --> 00:20:40.880 They're the

two biggest levers. 00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:43.519 So I and I really believe in those two levers. 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:49.440 and so I really think leadership teams can do a huge amount of good. 00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:58.880 And and I think I also think most people, I when I say most, I mean like 99.99% of people come to work most days trying to do a good job. 00:20:59.119 --> 00:20:59.680 Yeah. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.480 And leadership teams have a massive ripple effect on the those people. 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:10.160 I mean, one of my mentors said to me once, you know, there's 200 people, and this is his words, not mine. 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:20.880 There's 200 people working in my organization, which means it's probably about 150 families sitting around the table table tonight where one of my team members is influencing that family. 00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:22.960 I want to make sure that family has a good dinner. 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:34.880 So therefore, you know, the the environment I set up in my organization, that people do good work and they go home and they feel good about their family, that's down to the me and my team, how we set up that environment. 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:37.039 Yeah, and so I believe in that. 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:47.680 Yeah, so I'm hearing some strong beliefs there around teams can do good and people have good intention, and what happens in a team has ripple effects that extend to, as you say, people's family lives. 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:48.640 Yeah, absolutely. 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:49.519 Absolutely right. 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:50.160 Lovely. 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:55.359 There's probably two other influences that happen over time that came much later in my career. 00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:59.599 I started getting involved in transformational kind of work. 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:02.559 And I came across the work of Deborah Rowland. 00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:08.079 she has a book called Still Moving, which looks at different change approaches. 00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:23.599 So, not change management, but change approaches in terms of how teams lead into change and and and how they how they manifest their leadership as an entity, as a leadership group in these different change environments. 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:36.960 So watching that and learning some of those ideas influence the way I help a team think about change and how it leans into change and how it how it leads change or how it at least narrates change in an organization. 00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:39.200 So that that that was very, very helpful. 00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:44.000 and a whole kind of whole new set of ideas and language around that. 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:53.920 And then the the the last thing, which is where I'm I'm really playing a lot of my time these days, is in the whole notion of narrative, person narrative and organization narratives. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:03.599 Don McAdams is a someone I read a lot, and of course, David Drake will be well known in Australia from his time when he was here, it's also in the same space. 00:23:03.599 --> 00:23:20.640 And the notion of how we as individuals carry stories that can still be very, very helpful, but we also carry stories that are, in the words of Don McAdams, contaminate the environment that we're in and set up a less positive environment for us or for our teams. 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:37.599 so helping helping leaders and each of teams make meaning of the stories that they're carrying, or indeed proactively help make meaning of complexity in the organization to give confidence to their followers is is another kind of adjunct to that. 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:38.880 Beautiful. 00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:41.759 Well, we we've talked a bit about philosophy. 00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:43.200 What about purpose? 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:49.359 And I find this is a question that people often answer really quickly. 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:50.799 Like, why do you do team coaching? 00:23:50.799 --> 00:23:52.799 Well, I want to help teams become more effective. 00:23:52.799 --> 00:24:00.400 But if if we delve a little deeper, what else comes to mind if I ask you, why do you do team coaching? 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:04.160 This is not going to surprise you because I've already used all these words, right? 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:11.920 And look, I can I would say to you, Paul, I did not set out to go, hold on, let me think through what my purpose is, and da da da. 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:13.279 That's not true at all. 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:22.480 For me, it was always a case of when I look back over the last 10, 20 years, whatever it is, what's the constant theme of of the work I do? 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:26.079 Because I'm I'm actually a really big believer in little Ps, not big Ps. 00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:33.200 Yeah, then what I mean by that is you know, this whole notion of sitting in a rock waiting for my purpose to suddenly manifest. 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:34.559 I don't believe in that at all. 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:44.480 What I believe in is what you do every single day, and and and all the little actions you you do every single day shows up as my constant sense of purpose. 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:46.880 So so I call it the little P. 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.599 It's comes out of the work of a guy called Jordan Grummett. 00:24:49.599 --> 00:25:08.400 so when I when I think about that, then I can safely say the way I approach team coaching is very, very consistent, and therefore that's that has a sense of purpose about it, and that is to help leadership teams provide clarity and confidence to all their stakeholders because the ripple effect can impact many lives. 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:12.559 It's it's that simple and complex. 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:19.839 And and the way you explain it, it we it it's very easy to see that link now between philosophy and purpose and why you do the work. 00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:24.079 Well, another purpose question

would be how how do you know if you've done a good job? 00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:38.960 In a very practical sense, whatever I have pre-agreed with the leadership team leader and the team in advance, because I'm sure you're going to come to practice in a minute. 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:48.799 I interview everybody on the team and some of their stakeholders in advance of our first session together to understand where the team is and what an outcome would look like. 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:59.279 So whatever that agreement is, and we then revisit it on the morning of day one of our first ever meeting to see if that's still valid as an outcome. 00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:09.039 And I revisit it again at the morning of day two or the final day, whatever number of days we're doing together, to see if that's is still the outcome we're looking for, because of course it can change. 00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:15.680 so on a very, very practical level, you know, to whatever degree we achieve that is is a good outcome. 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:31.039 for me, so my commercial brain and my my my sales hat brain would say good outcome is they they want me back for a second and third time, which means they've seen value and they what they want to pay again. 00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:36.400 So that's that's a that's you know that's the business owner's hat on in terms of there's obviously good value here. 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:45.759 I think though, for from a long-term perspective, I get a lot of pleasure? 00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:46.720 Is that the right word? 00:26:46.720 --> 00:27:07.920 Uh I'm not sure what the right word is, but pleasure, joy, satisfaction, whatever the word is, watching a leadership team lead need me less and less and less over time because they are they are sustaining themselves and or key members of the team get promoted elsewhere, and and and the team continues. 00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:14.880 or in the case of one of my longest serving clients, is an organization called Seek out of Melbourne. 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:20.960 When you look at their top 60 leaders now, the internal promotion rate is the highest it's ever been. 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:25.119 And and so to me that that's a that's a real long-term success factor. 00:27:25.119 --> 00:27:35.759 so I obviously the work I do is not causing that, but there's a correlation between what I do and and what we do with them and that outcome. 00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:36.480 Yeah. 00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:38.400 You you talked about Seek. 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:45.839 one question that often evokes quite different answers from folks is when you're doing team coaching, who's your client? 00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:48.400 I think there's multiple clients. 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:56.160 the organization is the ultimate client because they're paying for it and the teams sit within the organization. 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.720 But there are there's you know, there's the the client who buys you in. 00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:06.480 It's it might be the head of HR, it might not be, but it's yeah, that is a client. 00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:11.599 There is a client who's the leader of whatever team you're with, they're clearly a an important client. 00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:19.039 they have a stakeholder or stakeholders, so to some degree that group is a client. 00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:29.039 Uh, it might be minimal, and since sometimes I've never I've never got involved with the stakeholders of the team, so therefore they're not a client, but quite often I'm very involved with the stakeholders. 00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:38.960 yeah, I mean I've mentioned Seek, I've been in board meetings at least once a year talking about talent, so therefore, by nature that they they are a customer. 00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:52.799 So I don't think there's any one customer, I think I think there's multiple customers, which is why team coaching is not simple, because there are multiple customers, and by nature of having multiple customers, there's differences in needs amongst those customers. 00:28:53.599 --> 00:29:05.920 So if I think too, I remember when they wrote the original coaching standards handbook about individual coaching, people said, yeah, the organization is a client, but so is the person that you're coaching. 00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:09.279 And at the end of the day, you've got to prioritize the person who you're coaching. 00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:16.240 What I'm hearing you, I'm not hearing a kind of binary mental model going on there. 00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:20.559 I'm hearing more about the complexity of those multiple stakeholders. 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:22.079 It cannot be binary. 00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:30.480 If you're approaching, I mean I don't I don't necessarily agree with the premise of the individual is is more important than the client leader. 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:32.000 That's a different conversation. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:40.720 I think you lean into conversations that are really prioritization, but you keep stepping back to take view of what's going on in the organization. 00:29:40.720 --> 00:29:48.079 Team coaching, because of them, even just take a team of of one leader and eight director ports, and they're all an exec team. 00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:56.000 And you're let's and let's say you're coaching the leader, but you're you're you're you're also the team coach as an example. 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:59.839 You're not coaching anybody else individually, but you're coaching the team as a team. 00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:07.039 Some of those eight director ports will be very, very comfortable that you are coaching their leader because they go, Great. 00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:11.039 Now we have a single voice and a single pair of eyes, and that's fantastic. 00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:17.440 Other leaders in the team will go, Oh, I'm not so sure I want to lean into the person because they'll be talking behind my back and I'm not sure I can trust them. 00:30:17.519 -->

00:30:17.680 Yeah. 00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:24.559 Now, none of that may be true, of course, but that that is a genuine human expectation that will happen. 00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:33.279 there'll be some people in that team who had a great experience of team coaching in the past, there'll be some people who had a dreadful experience, and that's going to filter what they think. 00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:36.720 So, to walk in with a binary expectation is just naive. 00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:48.880 so walking in with and there are multiple perceptions in this room, some of which I will never even know of, or I might not know for a couple of years what the perceptions are. 00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.319 So I just have to assume there's multiple things going on here. 00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:59.599 And I mean, I keep moving my hands, but t your listeners won't know that I can I keep moving my hands as if I'm doing Tai Chi. 00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:02.799 And I think team coach is is very like Tai Chi. 00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:05.359 You're always moving with different sense of energy in the room. 00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:06.720 Beautiful. 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:13.119 So so I've asked you about your philosophy and I've asked you about your purpose, and the third piece practice, which you just mentioned. 00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:17.519 What I mean, you you you know a lot of other team coaches. 00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:25.759 What what are some of the things you do that not every other team coach you know does do as in your approach to the work? 00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:37.519 I want to talk about music and and play because that that's I've realized over the last 10 years it's not unique to what I do or what my team do. 00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:40.319 But I think we're one of the very few who do it to the extent that we do. 00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:41.839 So I want to come to that. 00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:48.400 Peter Hawkins taught me something very, very early in my career, and I've never not done it, and he's always been right. 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:51.440 And his philosophy is the hard work is done before you enter the room. 00:31:51.440 --> 00:32:17.440 so all of the pre-interviews, all of the information gathering, creating the the agenda with the leader, depending on feedback you're getting about the leader in advance, to what degree you share that with the leader so to get them ready for the conversation, to what degree are you starting nudging the participants as in the team members before the session starts? 00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:30.160 And what I mean by that is you know, one of my favorite questions in the interview process is asking, you know, each individual in terms of where's the you know what's the strategic need for this team? 00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:32.400 Where's the team relative to that? 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:38.160 what what are the gaps the team has relative to what the expectations are? 00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:41.359 What does the team need to do

as an entity to move forward? 00:32:41.359 --> 00:32:43.680 And then, and this is where they don't they don't expect it. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:50.720 So, Paul, as a member of that team, what is the biggest shift that you've got to make individually to help that team move forward? 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:52.559 And most people don't expect that question. 00:32:52.559 --> 00:32:56.480 And I say to them, okay, can you think about that between now and our and our offside? 00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.880 Because ultimately this team is going to be successful. 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:01.519 All of you have got to make some sort of shift of some kind. 00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:12.799 And so when they walk into the room, they're already expecting a conversation that's gonna go, oh, he might even ask me what that gap is in my shift, because he's he's told me he told to think about it. 00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:18.079 So the kind of nudging of key people, or sorry, the nudging of everybody is I think is important. 00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:35.440 Over the years, I've started recognizing there's there are some key influencers in every same, every single leadership team, and I will try to nudge them in advance in terms of Paul, I really would love you to share with the team next week when we're together your ideas around what we just talked about. 00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:42.720 I mean, there'll be a place in the agenda for that, but I really want to hear your voice in that conversation. 00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:45.599 And so again, nudging people before they come into the room. 00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:57.200 so what I find is if if you spend your time there, the the agenda takes care of itself most of the time, and it allows me as a team coach to observe the dynamics in the room as opposed to worry about the agenda. 00:33:57.359 --> 00:33:58.000 Yeah. 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:16.880 So you've you've talked again about this this helping the team really connect with strategy and to be clear around its purpose and some of the personal shifts that may be required to achieve that purpose, which sounds quite it sounds the way you describe it like quite an intense agenda. 00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:19.119 Where does the music s it? 00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:34.079 So I'm a big believer in light and shade, as in light and shade in terms of intense questions, fun, or you know, serious, complex strategy type stuff, and then individual dynamics type stuff. 00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:36.159 So light and shade of the whole thing. 00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:41.519 and I'm very observant of this particular team that I'm meeting with. 00:34:41.519 --> 00:34:43.920 How many times have they done something like this before? 00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:46.480 and what was the previous experience like? 00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:56.079 Because some teams are or if you have a brand new leadership team or there's a lot of new members on the leadership team, it's like, well, let me just grab some water. 00:34:56.079 -->

00:35:04.960 I'm I'm mindful that they they may not have even gone away together before them. 00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:14.960 So that there might be a degree of nervousness in the room that will show up in some way, and and and the simplest way to show up is that people don't really engage, they just superficially engage. 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:37.519 So I'm trying to figure out how to create an agenda that is first of all addressing the key outcomes that everybody wants, but purposefully builds in unexpected sections that people were not assuming would happen, and it throws them into either a fun environment or a a slightly difficult environment, but it forces them to do something. 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:53.280 And so as simple as this is, and this is a simple activity that always works in unexpected ways, when it comes to the first morning break, I would say to people, okay, I'm gonna play you five seconds of this song and I'll play a song. 00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:55.440 And it doesn't make a difference what song it is. 00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:57.920 and it'll be an upbeat song. 00:35:57.920 --> 00:35:59.519 I'll say this is the Comeback song. 00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:05.039 What that means is when you hear this playing loud, this song has got three minutes and 20 seconds to it. 00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:08.880 You've got to be back in the room, sitting in your chair before the song finishes. 00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:10.239 We're going, okay, got it. 00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:18.960 So, but here's the thing the last person in the room who misses out, they have a choice of either singing a song, doing a dance, or telling us a joke. 00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:22.559 And I get them to agree, like they won't agree to this. 00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:24.559 But you do it in a funny kind of way. 00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:30.880 Invariably, of course, someone's back late, and invariably they all assume that I'm going to just carry on, but I never do. 00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:33.039 I go, right, let's let's go back to this. 00:36:33.039 --> 00:36:44.880 What what ends up happening is depending on the group, and actually depending on the nationality, if you're in Switzerland doing this, they will deliberately come back late so they can dance. 00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:46.559 They want to dance, right? 00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:48.639 And it's it becomes really funny. 00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:57.199 If you're in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, they'll want to sing because they all love karaoke. 00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:00.000 So there'll be a few folks who will deliberately come back late. 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:03.679 Uh, if you're in Australia, it tends to be jokers, so they'll they'll tell jokes. 00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:10.320 Now, within the team, within his own the actual team, different personalities will then start showing up. 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:26.239 But that becomes one of these unexpected conversations that as a coach, you can listen to what people, how people are reacting to it and use that as metaphors or as you know a learning point later if you listen close enough to it. 00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:30.480 But that just a very simple example of how to use a bit of fun. 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:54.400 I will if if I if we're in any kind of a teaching environment where you're trying to teach stuff like how our emotions hijack our thinking or anything like that, I will use a karaoke process where I'll bring in my own guitars and I'll say to the group, yeah, and the exercise here is you you've got to pick a song that really defines you, and we each are going to sing a verse of it. 00:37:54.400 --> 00:38:13.039 And you play that out, it becomes increasingly dramatic in terms of dotting up the tension, and eventually at the very, very end of it, we go, okay, no one's actually going to sing it, but I want to walk through this notion of how you felt, how you how you thought, how you behaved, what you know, what was your process, and just walk people through it. 00:38:13.039 --> 00:38:17.119 And and and but at the end of that, invariably someone wants to actually sing a song. 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:23.679 So again, it becomes using fun and light in ways that they weren't expecting. 00:38:23.679 --> 00:38:28.639 over time, this happened by accident once. 00:38:28.639 --> 00:38:32.320 So I was in I was in where was I? 00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:38.000 I was in Mexico of all places with a team that was headquartered in Brazil, and I'd never met this team before. 00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:47.840 So my first time with them, and so as I was going around the room asking people to introduce, because I was kind of catapulted into this team with two days' notice, so I had no time to prepare. 00:38:47.840 --> 00:38:49.519 The agenda was preset. 00:38:49.519 --> 00:38:51.920 I met the leader the night before for the first time. 00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.719 So as I'm going around the room saying, you know, can you just tell me who you are? 00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:55.920 Because we haven't met before. 00:38:55.920 --> 00:39:00.000 I just asked them a question of, oh, okay, or you're Paul, what's your favorite song? 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:01.679 Yeah, and I would write it down. 00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:08.480 So then at break time, I created a playlist of everyone's favorite songs that they had already told us, and we played over the course of the day. 00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:15.280 That generated, I think maybe six months of conversation because I was brought back to that team again and again. 00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:22.960 So you so you can use music and stuff and fun in very interesting ways just to break up the seriousness of the conversation. 00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:29.039 But adults, when when adults laugh, it allows us a doorway into something serious. 00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:35.599 And the absurdity of humor is often the one that actually underlines the truth of what's really going on. 00:39:35.599 --> 00:39:49.920 so if you can use

humor, absurdities through, say, play acting or any kind of any kind of performance type stuff, or music where it is a common language, then it's a it's a nice doorway into something serious. 00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:50.800 Yeah, beautiful. 00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:56.079 So it's the light and the light and shade piece, because I know you you love music and you can play music. 00:39:56.079 --> 00:40:03.840 For those of us that can't play music, it's it's it's the light piece, it's the fun piece, which you can achieve in different other ways too, I guess. 00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:05.039 Yeah, yeah. 00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:28.400 As simple as it is, if you take any an organization going through any kind of major culture change, where they're grappling with culture change, one of the easiest ways to get the organization or the the team to shine a light on the absurdity of the changes that need to be made but are difficult to be made. 00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:32.400 And that's often people often approach that through a very logical lens. 00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:36.559 And that's and that's perfectly understandable and it's a good starting point. 00:40:36.559 --> 00:40:43.840 If you can get people to shine a light on really, really clear examples, then the change becomes obvious. 00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:45.119 but that's more difficult. 00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:54.880 So what we often give people to do is we break them up into small groups and we give them 20 minutes to prepare, and they got to prepare a two-act, five-minute play. 00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:03.599 And the first act is a description of the current state, and the second act is a description of a year from now when it's changed, here's what it will look like. 00:41:03.599 --> 00:41:05.599 And that's that's the only guidance. 00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:10.559 Yeah, and you don't need any kind of musical background or theatrical background to do that. 00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:17.440 I cannot tell you how funny that exercise is always, how absurd it is always, yeah. 00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:23.519 But more importantly, how consistent everyone's little two-act plays are about what needs to be changed. 00:41:23.679 --> 00:41:24.400 Yeah, yeah. 00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:35.840 So everything's on the table, and when you do it like that, there is no excuse for the team to not address the change because they've already articulated all the absurdity in the organization that they know needs to be changed. 00:41:36.159 --> 00:41:37.599 Beautiful, beautiful. 00:41:37.599 --> 00:41:39.679 I've got a team I'm working with next week. 00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:41.440 I'm already getting some ideas. 00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:42.320 That's great. 00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:46.000 I mean, just linking the conversation back to where we started. 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:50.480 You talked about one of the things you talked about was narrative and stories and meaning making. 00:41:50.480 --> 00:41:52.800 How does that show up in practice? 00:41:54.639 --> 00:41:55.519 Individually. 00:41:55.519 --> 00:41:57.920 I often do so. 00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:03.360 So the way I work with teams, I typically work with a team at least three sessions in a year. 00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:09.760 A session could be two or three days per session, so therefore it's six to nine days in a year. 00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:31.679 And over that period, not the not the first session, but typically the second or between the second and third, I will do typically, not always, but typically I will do a series of 360s for each of the leadership team members, and then we'll bring that work into the next collective session, the next team session. 00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:33.119 360s, did you say? 00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:39.039 Yeah, so so in my case, the leadership circle 360s, but it doesn't make a difference, but whatever tool is there. 00:42:39.039 --> 00:42:52.239 So in the individual part of my teamwork, I will start the whole notion of narrative in terms of what were the events and activities or people that have shaped you along the way. 00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:59.119 and we will, you know, we will look at the last say three or four years of their career, including the role they're currently in. 00:42:59.119 --> 00:43:07.280 I will look at the first five years of the career in terms of the the forming organizations that they worked with, and I'll also talk to them about their family of origin. 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:12.559 And so I I phrase that by saying, We're all influenced by our family of origin. 00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:16.000 So, as an example, I'm the eldest child versus my sister's the youngest child. 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.159 Our experience is very, very different of our family. 00:43:18.159 --> 00:43:24.000 if you traveled lots of different places versus being stayed in one small village, very, very different experience. 00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:26.320 So talk to me about your family, how it shaped you. 00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:29.119 That that's that's that's the starting point of narrative. 00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:40.880 So it gets people used to the idea of, okay, I I can, first of all, a lot of leaders haven't even thought about that, but those that have, what I'm trying to get them to do is speak it out loud and and talk to us about that. 00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:57.440 When I'm bringing back together as a group, and we have we have done work together as a group looking at the 360, what it means individually or for the group and as a collective, what are the the strengths of this group as a leadership team, where are the some of the watch outs for this group as a leadership team? 00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:59.679 I will then put them into smaller groups. 00:43:59.679 --> 00:44:04.159 And I would say, you guys as a group have two hours for this conversation. 00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:12.239 I want you all, I want you and your small group of five or six people to start sharing your stories of origin and how that

has impacted you as a leader. 00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:14.480 And I'll give them a process for doing that. 00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:28.559 If we're lucky, if we're if we're in an offside venue where we're staying overnight as an example, I will try to engineer it so I can get the hotel or venue to build one or two fire pits for people to sit around after dinner. 00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:33.119 So it becomes a true sitting around the fireplace with marshmallows type conversation. 00:44:33.119 --> 00:44:40.000 And the the rule of thumb is when you're finished, you're finished, as in see you tomorrow type thing. 00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:45.119 So invariably what that means is they stay talking for four or five hours, which is the intention of this. 00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:45.519 Yeah. 00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:48.719 And if they have a few glasses of wine in their hands, who cares? 00:44:48.719 --> 00:44:52.239 Because they're a leadership team, they can do what they want, but it's just to help them. 00:44:52.239 --> 00:44:57.840 That process has changed almost every leadership team I've ever worked with. 00:44:57.840 --> 00:45:07.599 Because they're coming back in the next day, and the kind of language they say is, I now understand, you know, my mate Paul, he and I've known each other for 20 years. 00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:12.400 I had no idea this is why he does what he does the way he does it. 00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:13.760 Now it makes sense to me. 00:45:13.760 --> 00:45:17.039 Or indeed, my colleagues now understand Pod. 00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:22.639 When Pod gets really angry about X, Y, he's actually not angry about me, he's angry about something they did with his mother. 00:45:22.639 --> 00:45:25.760 That now makes sense in a way I've never understood before. 00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:31.360 So that kind of family dynamic stuff surfaces into a storytelling point of view. 00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:45.119 Over the course of the leadership team meeting, though, what we'll try and do is shift it from an individual understanding of my narrative to what kind of narratives are we creating in the organization by what we do as a team? 00:45:45.119 --> 00:45:48.960 so you know, what signals have we given the organization? 00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:53.039 Uh, and more importantly, what signals are we trying to cultivate in the organization? 00:45:53.039 --> 00:45:58.000 Which then leads to a proactive conversation on how do we shape narrative in the organization? 00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:00.719 How do we shape the culture through the storytelling? 00:46:00.719 --> 00:46:04.960 How do we shape the consistency of our messaging across our teams? 00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:10.320 How do we show how do we want to improve the way we we deal with the board as an example? 00:46:10.320 --> 00:46:15.519 And then in this in the sense of how aligned are the exec team members when we all go into the board meeting. 00:46:15.519 --> 00:46:16.639 Are we aligned at all? 00:46:16.639 --> 00:46:18.239 Uh, because usually they aren't. 00:46:18.239 --> 00:46:29.440 So it moves from starting with a personal sense of narrative to understanding my colleague's identity and therefore his narrative or her narrative to how do we shape the narrative. 00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:48.400 And so interesting because the way you started to describe that, it sounds very much like I was hearing that through the lens of trust and how how folks are getting a much greater sense of trust through that exercise, and which then kind of segues into a piece around influencing culture more broadly outside the team. 00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:55.280 I would I would even I would 100% agree with you, and I would say there's that there's trust is number two, influence is number three. 00:46:55.280 --> 00:46:59.599 Number one is understand me, understand my my identity is a starting point. 00:46:59.599 --> 00:47:07.760 Yeah, and for a lot of the leaders, it's the first time they've put two or two together in the sense of here's where I came from, and that's why I do what I do. 00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:12.639 For a lot of these, that's the first step, and they hadn't not everybody, but a lot of these have never done that before. 00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:26.000 once they once leaders are us as into as human beings, once we understand this is why I do what I do, we tend to have more compassion for ourselves. 00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.719 Once we start having more compassion for ourselves, we then have more compassion for our colleagues, which then engenders trust, or at least amplifies trust. 00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:33.599 Yeah, interesting. 00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:34.639 Yeah, cool. 00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:36.960 I've got two more questions, I think. 00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:52.239 One is again, I'm just going back to the beginning, right at the beginning of the conversation where you talked about your experiences in team coaching in lots of different industries and sectors and so on. 00:47:52.239 --> 00:48:04.239 do you find yourself approaching the task of team coaching in a particular way in particular sectors, or or does that not really play an influence in the way you go about the work? 00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:06.719 Is it more about just contracting with what's there? 00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:12.000 I I have a story that may or may not be true. 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:14.960 You've known me a long time, you can debate this with me or not. 00:48:14.960 --> 00:48:22.239 I certainly believe that I I am more effective in some industries than I am in other industries. 00:48:22.239 --> 00:48:27.920 I certainly enjoy industries more than other industries. 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:34.719 so I I used to do a lot of work in the banking finance banking and finance industry. 00:48:34.719 --> 00:48:36.159 I haven't in a long time. 00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:36.559 Yeah. 00:48:36.880 --> 00:48:40.960 I've done some work in professional services, I've never enjoyed that at all. 00:48:40.960 -->

00:48:51.840 whereas I love technology, I love healthcare, I love pharmaceuticals, I love education, I love any kind of creative industry. 00:48:51.840 --> 00:48:52.239 Right. 00:48:52.239 --> 00:48:58.079 and I love being involved with the leader and leadership team when they can actually do something. 00:48:58.079 --> 00:49:05.920 As in, you know, when they when they have agency to actually do something, the bigger the organization, the less agency you tend to have. 00:49:05.920 --> 00:49:19.280 And as in, you know, if you once you start getting into organizations in a sense of 10 to 20 to 30,000 people, there's less and less personal agency at that leadership level, which doesn't mean you can't be very, very effective, it just means they're just less there. 00:49:19.280 --> 00:49:22.880 there's there's more there's more constraints rather than ordinance agency. 00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:29.119 so for me, I find like here's my rule of thumb. 00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:34.480 If I have to come to the meeting wearing a suit and a tie, then I really don't want to be there. 00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:39.039 Yeah, if if I can come to the meeting wearing jeans and t-shirt, I'm your man. 00:49:39.280 --> 00:49:39.599 Yeah. 00:49:39.599 --> 00:49:42.480 So that that talks to the kind of work that you like. 00:49:42.480 --> 00:49:55.920 If you did end up somehow, for some strange reason, working in a with with a bank team, would would your approach be any different fundamentally, or or again is it more just responding to what's what's there? 00:49:56.400 --> 00:49:57.760 Fundamentally, no. 00:49:57.760 --> 00:50:08.639 But because I still believe the philosophy that I adhere to and the purpose I work with is been a long-term thing. 00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:21.440 So if I was to just cast that aside to do something, then by nature, I'm either I'm either intentionally discarding my sense of purpose for a short-term gain or there was never a purpose to begin with. 00:50:21.440 --> 00:50:28.320 but what I find is again, I haven't worked in the banking finance industry for a number of years, so this may have changed. 00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:51.920 But what I find is once you go into the large, say in Australia, the top four banks or internationally like HSBC or those kind of size banks, programs are usually created at a central source and they're being cascaded around the organization and they're looking for people to facilitate them locally rather than do the transformation kind of work locally. 00:50:51.920 --> 00:50:56.159 Therefore, yes, you are in that role. 00:50:56.159 --> 00:51:03.199 I am still a team coach, but I've less and less involvement in terms of the program, the content, the process, etc. 00:51:03.199 --> 00:51:07.760 And that's and and therefore I just find that less creative for me personally. 00:51:07.760 --> 00:51:11.760 so would I do it, of course, for the right person, the right leader? 00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:13.920 Of course I would, but

it's it's just not my go-to. 00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:15.599 Not your cup of tea. 00:51:15.599 --> 00:51:22.239 So we've talked about the three Ps, philosophy, purpose, and practice, or process. 00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:24.320 My my last question is your 4th P. 00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:31.199 So what's your fourth P? 00:51:31.199 --> 00:51:35.599 What's your plan for the future in terms of your own development as a coach? 00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:42.559 Where do you see your own progress and based on the kind of principle that we can all keep learning and all keep improving? 00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:51.840 I've actually slowed down the amount of team coaching that I'm doing. 00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:56.719 I said this before in other forums, and I know you know this. 00:51:56.719 --> 00:52:14.400 The reason why I got to do so much team coaching was every time I signed up a new executive for individual coaching, I presented in their contract that I would do one day of team coaching with their team, and then I stipulate here's the price for day two onwards. 00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:21.920 So very quickly I ended up having 20 or 30 teams running over the course of any 18-month period. 00:52:21.920 --> 00:52:24.000 So that's lots and lots and lots of team coaching. 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.400 I don't do that at all anymore. 00:52:26.400 --> 00:52:28.079 I stopped doing that . 00:52:28.880 --> 00:52:32.079 Actually, COVID coincided with when I wanted to do less a of it. 00:52:32.079 --> 00:52:40.480 so pre-COVID, I was doing, I think in 2019, I did 22 international flights a year, and that was all for team coaching stuff. 00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:44.480 So that was great at the time, is no longer great for what I want to do. 00:52:44.480 --> 00:52:46.239 So I'm doing a lot less of that. 00:52:46.239 --> 00:52:49.920 I still do my process is still the same. 00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:54.559 Even when I'm working with an executive, I build in a team coaching process as part of their contract. 00:52:54.559 --> 00:52:57.039 It's up to them whether they want to take it up or not. 00:52:57.039 --> 00:52:59.280 Most clients do. 00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:06.400 What I would say to anybody listening to this, if you want to get good at team coaching, do lots of it. 00:53:06.400 --> 00:53:08.079 It's the only way to get good at it. 00:53:08.079 --> 00:53:19.679 Find ways to get involved, even if it's for free to start with, just to get involved so you can pick up skills and nuances and and and understand some complexities. 00:53:19.679 --> 00:53:24.320 What I would also say, which you said up front, there is no one way to do team coaching. 00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:38.719 The more eclectic you can be, the more skills you can bring to the table, the more processes or models you can bring, or in Peter Hawkins' case, that you can make up, the better. 00:53:38.719 --> 00:53:54.719 and and you're gonna be far more useful to the team . For me going forward, it's less about skill building, it's less about volume of teamwork, it's more about the kind of work that I want to do. 00:53:54.719 --> 00:54:25.039 I understand the importance of what I call a reset meeting, which is you know, when you have a leadership team meeting for the first time, typically there's a brand new leader who's just been appointed, and the team is kind of resetting itself with this new leader, and the leaders kind of setting themselves with this team, and it's very much a foundational type session, and therefore it goes to it it addresses clarity, you know, what's this team about, what are we here to do, and all that kind of process type stuff. 00:54:25.039 --> 00:54:29.679 So I tend to do less and less of that going forward because it's really, really important. 00:54:29.679 --> 00:54:30.719 I just don't want to do it. 00:54:30.719 --> 00:54:36.400 I'm really interested in transformational kind of work, particularly with complex change. 00:54:36.400 --> 00:54:49.039 So, how do leaders lead complex change and what's the the narrative and the dialogue and the and the the sense of pace or sense of slowing down a team needs to have to be able to do that? 00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:51.280 Wonderful. 00:54:51.280 --> 00:54:52.320 Well, thank you, Pod. 00:54:52.320 --> 00:54:56.400 I've kept you longer than I'd intended, and it's just been great. 00:54:56.400 --> 00:55:02.000 You've bestowed upon us a whole pile of pearls of great wisdom. 00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.039 So thank you. 00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:04.880 Always a pleasure, Paul. 00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:08.320 Usually we have this conversation over beers. 00:55:10.159 --> 00:55:11.119 Thank you, Pod. 00:55:11.599 --> 00:55:12.400 All right, mate. 00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:17.280 And that was our first TCC podcast. 00:55:17.280 --> 00:55:23.599 If you'd like to know more about the TCC, then send me an email to Paul at leadingsystemically.com. 00:55:23.599 --> 00:55:26.960 In the meantime, go well, and see you next time.