Why Great Teams Aren’t Built on Talent Alone: A Conversation with Dr. Vanessa Druskat (Part One)

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Look at this email, what does it mean? Communication is
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the imparting or exchanging of information or news. The single
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biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has
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taken place. Conversation is the oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions,
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or ideas.
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Forbes Books Radio presents the conversation with Clinton and Pageant.
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Today's guest challenge is one of the biggest assumptions in
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modern leadership that if you just hire a smart, talented people,
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high performance will follow. Doctor Vanessa Druscat is an Associate
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professor at the Peter T. Paul College of Business and
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Economics at the University of New Hampshire and an internationally
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recognized expert in leadership and team performance. She has advised
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leaders and teams at more than a dozen Fortune five
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hundred and Global five hundred companies, helping them translate research
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into real war results. She's also the co author of
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one of Harvard Business Reviews and most influential articles on
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emotionally intelligent teams, an article so Unpactful has been selected
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six times for inclusion on hbr's Most Valued Collections, and
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she's received multiple awards for both her research and her
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teaching in her book, which will be talking about today,
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the emotionally intelligent team. She makes a powerful case a
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teen performance isn't primarily about individual talent. It's about the
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norms teams building around trust, candor, accountability, and how they
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manage emotion TOGETHERNESSA welcome to the conversation.
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Thank you, Clint. It's pleasure to be here.
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So good to have you. So I like to think
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about all the guests to come on the podcast as superheroes,
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and every superhero has a backstory or an oragin story.
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So you know what's yours. How did you get to
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where you are today?
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Well, good, good question. You threw we off by calling
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me a superhero. No one's ever called my kids and
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my husband certainly wouldn't. So my back story is a
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couple of things. I started working young. I grew up
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in a farming community, and I started working on farms
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when I was twelve, and I worked in some great teams.
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And I also was a bit of an athlete when
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I was in high school and had great teams. But
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then when I got to the work world, the teams
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were just terrible and they were competitive. And the thing
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that bothered me the most was with when people were
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competitive around me. I just did the same thing. So
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I went from being someone who loved to help others
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and really loved to help build the team to someone
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who was just, you know, just becoming another poor team
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member in the workplace. So when I went back to
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school to get a graduate degree, and I focused on teams.
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And so at first I did a master's degree, learned
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a little bit there. Then I decided to go back
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again and get a doctorate, and in both of those degrees,
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I focused on teamwork. Big question was how do you
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build a great team? And when I was in school,
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there was just not much out there. Everything focused on
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personalities and hiring and and I just thought, no, no, no, no, no.
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You know, my personality has been the same all along,
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and my skills and you know, I could be but
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I could be your best team member or I could
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be your most competitive ones. That's what That's what everybody's
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going to be and least helpful. And but so I
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knew there was something about the environment. I'd also done
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a lot of traveling in my youth. My parents were
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international educators, and so I knew that cultures, you know,
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you behaved differently in different cultures. So when I started
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studying teams, I started seeing different cultures in teams, and
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some cultures pulled out people's best and some cultures didn't.
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And so that's what I focused on in my research.
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So that's a law. That's anyway. Let me let me
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stop there and ask you for follow ups. I hope,
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I hope I made some sense.
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No, I did. And in the book you talk about
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you had a lot of jobs early on, like twenty
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eight it was a number.
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Yes, Indeed, indeed I worked. I did a lot of jobs.
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I did everything when I was I've been especially when
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I was young, you know, getting my working my way
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through through college and all those things. I've done everything
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for being a dishwasher to a camp counselor through a
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shoe sales person. But then i'd work my way finally
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into human resources kind of stuff, and then I went
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back to school.
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Well that's good. That does give me a lot of background.
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I'm working with different teams then, And is the book
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just to add on to all the research you've done
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or what inspired you to write it?
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Sure? So you know, my colleague and I wrote that
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that Harvard Business Review article that you mentioned, My colleague
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Steve Wolf and I, and it just got a lot
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of attention, and so I had a lot of requests
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from Harvard Business School Press asking me if I would
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please write to write a book because it was getting
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a lot of attention tension the article was and you know,
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I'd been in I'd been a really good academic or
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really good researcher, and most of my research had been
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done in organization, so I was in companies a lot,
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all kinds at different levels and things. But I hadn't
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actually taken the model and tried to apply it right.
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So I hadn't actually coached teams with it or coached leaders,
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and I wanted to see what happened. So I just
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said to them, look, no, I got to get out
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on the road and see what happens and get some lessons.
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And so, you know, much to the chagrin of my
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academic colleagues, I kind of got out on the road
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and it was just a blast and it really worked.
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And so I can say more about that. But so
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then I finally wrote. I finally called up HBr after
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we contacted throughout the years, and I said I'm ready,
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and they said, great, go for it, and that was.
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That's the story. Really.
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I always like people who roll their sleeves up and
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get out and talk to the real world people. That's
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all good.
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Oh my gosh. Absolutely, you do it all the time.
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So you know, you have such good stories in the book.
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I really appreciated those. We'll talk about some of those
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along the way. Let's just get some semantics out of
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the way, because I like to make sure we define
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things the way you define them. So what exactly is
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team emotional intelligence what you refer to as TEMEI, and
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how does that differ from the emotional intelligence of individuals?
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Sure? Sure, So individual emotional intelligence is basically a set
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of for skills that an individual holds. So it's your
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awareness of your emotion, management of your emotion, awareness of
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others emotions. So do you focus on their emotion when
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you're when you're talking to them and such, and then
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managing others emotions. So TMEI is a little bit like
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managing others emotions, but it's about managing the emotions of
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the group. So t MEI is about building an environment
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with norms being a culture. So it's about a culture,
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a set of norms. And I'll define norms for you
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in a minute. That build an environment that's emotionally safe,
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that's trusting, and that brings out the best in people
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and set to team up for high performance. So I
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can say much more about that. I lay it all
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out in the book. But it's not about individuals. It's
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about the agreements that the team members make. This is
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how we're going to behave around here, and and it
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supports performance.
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It's kind of like having You can have the best
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individual pieces, but they don't mess well together, and then
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there's probably not going to be a symphony in the end.
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So exactly exactly, And so let me give you an example.
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So the quintessential emotional intelligence skill is empathy, and you know,
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so you're tuning into others emotions and you're you know,
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and you're listening carefully. Well, you can't use that skill
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in most teams because nobody else is using it. So
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you have to build an environment where that's valued, where
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you create that, you know, And that's what I advocate
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in the book. So I talk about how you build
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that kind of environment and lo and behold, that's the
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kind of environment that builds trust and motivates. So I'm
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I can say a lot more about that.
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So this may be you may have just answered this question.
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But a lot of organizations they think, and let's just
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go out and find the A players, you know, the
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best of the best, and will stack the team with them.
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But that's not really how it works and complex teams,
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is it.
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Not at all? And you know, I'm not the only
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one to say this. You know, there's been research out
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of Harvard, out of the University of Pennsylvania, my own research,
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and even Google did a study once they were wondering
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what differentiates the greats from the not so great? The
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under their one culture, right, they thought, hey, we got
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to go great culture. Why are all the teams great?
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And inevitably it comes down to not the individuals. And
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Google spend a lot of money trying to see with
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it this personality that just skill that No, it's about
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what you create in the room together and that outperforms.
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So if you can have a mediocre team and you
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but if everybody's interacting well and bringing out the best
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in one another, then you will outperform a team of geniuses,
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right with top skills that aren't working with one another,
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that aren't listening, and et cetera, et cetera. So I
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can say a lot more about that if you're interested,
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but that basically we've known for a long time the
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building a team is not about building a team of geniuses.
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It's about making the most of what you've gotten the
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team and bringing out the best of one another.
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I think another thing you said in the book that
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I guess I didn't think about it until you wrote it,
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and then I'm like, yeah, that kind of makes sense
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is the team's culture isn't necessarily the company's culture.
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Oh gosh, no.
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No.
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And sociologists who are big soolo sociologists originally started studying cultures, right,
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and anthropologists too, right, And they've always said, it's the
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local culture, the culture that touches you, it's not the
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bigger culture. So you know, I mean, I study cultures
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in organizations. I go into one organization and I go
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from team to team to team, and every team has
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its own culture. And so the big research question that
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I've been studying for thirty years is what differentiates the
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highest performing teams in an organization from the average performing teams,
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not from the poor teams, but from the average, because
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most teams are average. I learned this research paradigm from
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my mentor. And so what I did was I look
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at the cultures of the greats the cultures of the average,
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and I figure out what is it that the grades
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do that the average don't do. And that's been the
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focus of my research. That's the team emotional intelligence model.
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It's these things that are you know a lot of
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them are common sense, but they're not common practice and teams.
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And let me tell you, I've spent thirty years in
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organizations studying teams and fifteen years out there working with teams,
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and you will just it'll blow you away. How it
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won't blow you away because I know you do project management.
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It's just there are so many teams that aren't doing
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what everybody knows you should do because leaders don't to
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do it.
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I think there's a saying that common senses in all
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that common So I think that's what you're running into.
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Yeah, bingo binko.
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So we're just kind of talking about how high performing
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teams really produce an effective culture. And then I remember
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reading in the book that teams are systems. So if
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I'm a CEO, listen to this. What does it mean
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to take a systems approach? A team performance instead of
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a talent approach.
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Sure, So systems are about interaction. So the power of
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the system. You think about a mechanical system, right one,
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that's the one that powers your car. You don't have
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all these pieces side by side. You have them interacting
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and it's those interactions that create the beauty of the
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engine get the car going well. Individuals in the team
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are need to interact. But here's here's the catch that
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most people don't realize. Every interaction you have inside or
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outside of a team generates emotion. That's what emotional intelligence is.
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It's picking up on those on those interactions. But when
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you've got a team, everybody's having an emotional reaction to
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everyone else in the team, and so you have to
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really recognize that you've got to build an emotional and
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emotionally comfortable and an environment that basically meets the emotional
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needs of the individuals. So you can check that box
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and move on to a relentless focus on the task,
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move on to the project management. But if you don't
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focus on that early stuff, if you don't take care
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of the individuals so that they'll continue to interact in
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an effective way, then you're going to run into problems.
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And I would say that one of the biggest AHAs
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people have from reading the book or from getting to
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know team emotional intelligence is just really the critical importance
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of spending some time building the needs or satisfying the
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needs of the individuals, which is about building relationships.
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Trusty, I'm going to get these numbers wrong because I
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don't have them in front of you. But I was,
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I guess, not surprised, but a little bit surprised at
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the emotional neural netw work processes. I think eleven million
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data points a second, and the cognitive one only does
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like four thousand a second or something. If I remembering something.
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The cognitive one is like more like twenty or thirty.
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It's ridiculously small.
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Yeah, it's really because it's meant to be, you know,
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higher order thinking. But the emotion, you know, we basically
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have what neuroscientists consider two systems in the brain, and
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you know, they simplify it by talking about two systems.
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One is the emotion system and one is the sort
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of the IQ cognitive brain. We you know, we evolved first,
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our ancestors just used the emotion system. We didn't have language, right,
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we actually had when we saw it had tougher problems
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to solve, you know, like the ice age and such.
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We we grew a bigger brain, we grew a bigger
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cognitive brain, but we never let go of our emotion brain.
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And so we pick up in order to save our lives.
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We pick up eleven million bits of information per second.
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And what the other thing that's really interesting is that
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we before you even enter the room of a team,
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or enter the online zoom or whatever you're using to
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meet people with, people are prepping their brains already. The
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brain is prepping the person for what they're going to find.
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And you don't miss a trick. When people don't listen
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to you, and people don't seem to care about you,
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and people ignore you, they don't miss it, and it
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scares the brain. The brain is designed to save your life,
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and it occupies attention that keeps you. It creates conformity,
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It occupies what you could be using to think and
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contribute to the team. So anyway, this is again another
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contribution when we talk about team emotional intelligence. Why you
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need to meet these individual needs that calm the brain down,
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make you feel like you belong, you matter here. You
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know this is where who you are here and we
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value you and then boom boom boom, you can make
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mistakes and you can be more innovative, et cetera. Etc.
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That's great, and we'll talk more about that because that
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that's I think a really important point. I'm an engineer
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by training, so I love numbers. And there were some
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surveys you mentioned earlier in the book. One found that
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redesign of organizations around teams was like the top trend
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at that point. Another found that the top workforce strategy
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was team collaboration. Yet exit survey is taken during the
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mass exitus of employees during the pandemic and right afterwards
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listed the top three reasons for leaving as they don't
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feel value by the organization, they don't feel value by
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their managers, and they don't feel the sense of belonging
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at work. So it seems like we have a pretty
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big disconnect.
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Here, really big disconnect. And everybody thinks, well, you know,
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we've got we've got adults in the room, doesn't you know,
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And so we hire good people, you know, we know,
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and it's true, we know how to manage ourselves, you know.
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But what they don't realize is that we know how
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to manage what we look like and how often we
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contribute the other things. It's just fascinating research on this. Unfortunately,
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you know the world hasn't heard about. Like one of
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the most fun things right now. This book was finding
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all these studies that I knew that leaders would learn from.
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Like so, for example, this one study that shows that
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people are really good at contributing just about the same
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amount of information as everyone else without really sharing their
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best information. Because in the information age, you share your
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best ideas, then you're giving away your gold right. And
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in those surveys you were talking about, one of the
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biggest worries of leaders and CEOs is that people are
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not transparent with what they're sharing. You know. I mean,
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I can say more about that if you're interested. But
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you know, leaders have known for a long time that
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you you have to somehow motivate people to share their
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best and that becomes about building that environment where you
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you know, where you do trust, where you do feel
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like you belong and you're part of something bigger than yourself.
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And I got to tell you everyone wants that. Nobody
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wants to go into a team where they have to
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guard themselves And I mean I've talked to enough team
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members and seen enough teams that it's a high point
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in people's career when they belong to a team where
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everyone everyone trust everyone. You know, you don't have to
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be so guarded. You know you can beat yourself, and
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you can you can really perform well together together feels good.
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Yeah, I think most people have probably experienced the team
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that the atted who to some people is that I'm
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going to hold this because the only way I can
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rise is if you get lower, right, And it's the
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competition you called it. And yet I've also been most
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of my careers we spent with teams that are the opposite,
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which is where some of my best interests that you
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know everything that I know, so you can help me
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what I'm doing. And I think when you work in
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a culture like that, it's to your point, it's just
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so much more powerful. And people often will deflect if
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if somebody so let's say I had an idea and
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I shared it in the meeting you were with, and
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you didn't share that idea later, and they say, that's
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a great idea. You're probably going to go well, actually
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Clint said that, so you're it's not about me raising myself.
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It's about us together, right, going.
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Forward, right right, absolutely absolutely. And you know one thing,
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you know, you mentioned with the word belonging before, which came,
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you know, the pandemic at the end. People were leaving
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left and right, and it was a it became a
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catch all term. It's been used a lot. But what
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happened to me just let me just take a little
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bit of diversion here. After I went out when I
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first went out on the road with the TMEI model
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with my colleagues and we started testing it in various places,
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I couldn't believe how well it worked, and I thought,
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you know, what's going on here? What is it? Why
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is it? It's bringing people together, and it's opening people up,
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and they're you know, and I so I at some
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point I knew I had to write the book, and
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so I kind of left my colleagues they continue doing
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the work, went back to the office, you know, the university,
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and I bumped into this thick, thick research database. I'm belonging.
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Psychologists have been studying it for ages, and it turns
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out the belonging is the need that rules them all.
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I mean, if you're a lord of the Rings family, like,
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that's the need that rules them everything, you know, everything
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underneath that, my need for control, my need for trust,
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my need for safety, all that sits in to my belonging.
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It helps me feel like I belong, which is ultimately
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what I want. And I can say more about that
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if you want, but it is really the ultimate And
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what is belonging belonging is I'm genuinely accepted, I'm known, understood,
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valued and supported, and I support others. It's not just
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they support me, We support one another. That's the kind
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of community people want to be in. And I can
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say a lot more about that. Now. Is it always
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perfect when you use TV? I know, you know it's
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waxes and wains, But the idea is, if you know
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what the ingredients are to get there, you can move up.
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And like any relationship, you know, I think about my
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relationship with my husband or my kids, it's you know
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what you want. You want to hit the good stuff
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and know what it takes to get up there, and
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then when you come down, you come back up faster,
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you know. So anyway, let me let me stop there?
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No, no, please, let you let you go? So I
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do well, I will talk about belonging this again a
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little bit later on, but that's good introduction. Another thing
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that I thought was interesting is, you know, you say,
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conventional wisdom has what they call the list of characteristics
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for winning teams, but you actually think there's something else
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that's more important, which is the quality of interactions. Why
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do you think the quality of First of all, how
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do you define an interaction? And then how do you
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think the quality of interactions is a better predictor of success?
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Well, first of all, you know interactions, as I said earlier,
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because teams are systems, and so the way team work works,
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you know when you're making a decision, right, So every
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team is a little bit different. Let me say that
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some teams come together for just information sharing, some teams
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come together to make decisions together. So you know, there's
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a little bit of difference. But the more you have
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to interact to get your work done, even if it's
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just a few people that have to interact, the more
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important your interactions become. And what you want are interactions
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where I say one thing and it reminds you of
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something else, and we learn from one another and we
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build something together that neither one of us knew right,
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that's what makes teams better at decisions than individuals. And
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we've known for a long time that when everyone gets
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heard in the team, teams make far better decisions than individuals.
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I mean, the other thing is I'm going to well,
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let me just take a little bit of a side
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deviation here. You know, the brain is not designed to
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be rational. Okay, the brain, I've already mentioned it's designed
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to save your life, but it's also designed to save
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your energy. And basically, we have our brains make quick decisions.
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We see certain things, we don't see everything, and our
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brain wants to, you know, focus in and blah blah blah.
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So what happens is that we miss things. And so
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one Herb Simon, who got the Nobel Prize in economics,
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whose political scientists actually back in the nineteen fifties. His
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lifetime contribution was that we'll make irrational decisions alone. You
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want to approach rationality, get a team, because when you
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exchange things and when you actually interact and listen and
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you bill, you're going to come up with much better,
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more rational ways of thinking about things. And so anyway,
427
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he's not the only three now account of three Nobel
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Prize and economics recipients now have won the award by
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showing that the brain is irrational. Okay, So anyway, so
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that's why we have to have interactions coming to the teams.
431
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And now I've forgotten your original question. What was your original?
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It's why is it better than how are the interactions
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more important than the individual.
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Skills and the individuals, because well, let me say this,
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if you had super talented individuals and they all had
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good interactions and they were all listening to one another,
437
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then you'd have Nirvana. The point is, it's really hard
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to hire people like that and maintain them, especially without
439
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massive egos. Okay, So what I try to argue against
440
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is spending all your time thinking you're going to hire
441
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for the perfect team, especially because one of the biggest
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derailers of teams, besides people not schearing and for their
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best information, is people some people you know, owning owning you,
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speaking too much and having too much power, right, and
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we know that often the most experienced person in the
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room is not going to be the one with the
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with the with the best ideas, and that they need
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to hear these other things and take off on it,
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and blah blah, blah, right, and so so let me
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just repeat that one more time in a clear way.
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It would be fantastic if you could get a really,
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really smart group of people and teach them how to
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interact well, you know, build an emotionally intelligent group. It's
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just hard to do that, and I don't want people
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wasting their time on that. What I want to do
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is teach leaders how to build a team with whomever
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you've got. With whomever you've got, as long as they
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can do the task, If they can do their job,
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you can build an environment and have a high performing team.
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You're not passionate about this at all, are you, dude?
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Look me just give you a quote from one of
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the leaders I interviewed once who said to me, you know,
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long ago I realized I'm never going to get all
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these A plus individuals in my team. This was a
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leader at Johnson and Johnson, very high level, you know,
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big company, what is it, Fortune one hundred or something,
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Fortune and fifty. Of course he could hire good people,
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he said, you just can't. You can't get him and
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keep him. He said, from now on, what I focus
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is on is building an A plus team. When we
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work together, we do a plus work. I don't need
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eight plus people to do that.
473
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Yeah. Yeah, I remember some projects in my career where
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you get the guy who wants to be the black box.
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You know, I'm the expert, leave me alone. He doesn't
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want to play as a part of the team. He's
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the expert. You give me the information and I'll give
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it when I when I finished, I'll give you the output.
479
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:19.519
And that's not really conducid to teamwork. And we know
480
00:25:19.559 --> 00:25:21.359
that no matter how smart you are as an individual,
481
00:25:21.400 --> 00:25:23.480
you're going to be smarter as a collective. We just
482
00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:23.920
know that.
483
00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:28.279
Yes, yes, we know that right in fact, people that
484
00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:31.359
it's hard. Let me ask you, how do you convince
485
00:25:31.400 --> 00:25:31.880
people of that?
486
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:36.440
You know, so it's it's always difficult at first and
487
00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:38.960
then and I'm not sure you ever convince some. You know,
488
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:40.759
some are always going to think they're the smartest person
489
00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:43.759
in the room. But as a facilitator on project work,
490
00:25:43.799 --> 00:25:46.680
what I try to do is, you know, from your experience,
491
00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:48.440
if there's twenty people in the room, there's two that
492
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:51.039
want to dominate the conversation. They have no problem being
493
00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:53.880
the head person and talking, and and yet there's eight.
494
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:56.599
You know, the people in the room that have something
495
00:25:56.640 --> 00:25:58.799
to add. And so your job as a facilitator is
496
00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:01.559
to make sure you draw out the information from the
497
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:04.240
other people so that at least influences the direction the
498
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:08.519
two other people are headed right right, because as a
499
00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:10.720
team otherwise, let's just get rid of the eighteen people
500
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:13.839
say their salaries and you guys will do it all right.
501
00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:15.880
And that's a skill. And so let me let me
502
00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:18.119
say add one piece to that. The first norm in
503
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:20.480
our model. You know, we've got this model of the
504
00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:23.480
TEMI norms. There's nine of them. The first one we
505
00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:27.640
call it understand team members, and it's about getting to
506
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:30.680
know the skills that each person brings. And so what
507
00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:33.799
I don't find is that those two people who think
508
00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:35.279
they're the smartest in the room, and they may be
509
00:26:35.319 --> 00:26:38.559
the smartest in the room, they once they know everybody
510
00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:41.000
else's skill, once they get to know them a little
511
00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:44.119
bit my, you know, And this is what I've seen,
512
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.200
they listen a little bit more. They're a little more
513
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:51.640
capable of saying, well, maybe there's something that person can add.
514
00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:54.440
And so that's one of the one of my goals
515
00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:56.359
is to get people to listen to one another and
516
00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.119
see the value in one another, and that first norm
517
00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:00.279
really makes a different.
518
00:27:01.160 --> 00:27:03.920
Is that the best norm implement is a first step
519
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:05.000
and you want to shift the culture.
520
00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:09.359
Yeah, you know. So there's three there's three categories of
521
00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:10.440
norms in the model.
522
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:13.319
You know, we uh sit the normous just how we
523
00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:14.960
operate together? Is that what a norm is?
524
00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:18.680
Yes, great question, thanks, So normous? What's normal here? How
525
00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:21.440
do we operate here? So it's your routines, your habits,
526
00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:24.960
this is what we do, right, and it's what you know,
527
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:28.079
this is what we do in this team. And so
528
00:27:28.920 --> 00:27:32.319
there's three categories of norms that we found. One is
529
00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:35.519
all about taking care of the individuals and it's about
530
00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:39.559
getting to know the individuals and respecting the individuals. And
531
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:43.359
it's becomes really important because you're going to lose people
532
00:27:43.400 --> 00:27:45.160
if you don't take care of the individuals and you're
533
00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:47.240
not going to get people. Everybody's going to judge one
534
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:49.200
another until they get to know one another. So that
535
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:53.359
becomes that bucket. The second bucket is about this relentless
536
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:57.640
focus on assessment and adaptation, which is very much about
537
00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:01.200
a project management focus, right, so constantly seeing where are
538
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.160
we very assessing and you know, so there's four norms
539
00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:06.079
that fit into that. And then the final one is
540
00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:09.519
reaching outside the boundary and getting information that you don't
541
00:28:09.559 --> 00:28:12.559
have inside the team. And so again this I know,
542
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.480
this model fits in well with project management. So those
543
00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:18.480
are the three buckets, and I always advocate that leaders
544
00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:20.519
have at least one norm from each of those buckets.
545
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:23.240
But the most important norm in the model is the
546
00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:25.200
one that I first thought was kind of stupid, Like
547
00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:27.319
I couldn't figure out why we kept we kept seeing
548
00:28:27.319 --> 00:28:29.559
it in these great teams over and over, and it's
549
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:33.200
this understand team members. It's getting to know what what skills?
550
00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:35.559
You know, what's the background, you know, what is it
551
00:28:35.599 --> 00:28:38.720
the Clint Oh, so he went to Georgia Tech. He's
552
00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:41.759
an engineer, he's a tech tech guy. You know, he's
553
00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:43.960
a project manager. This is what he brings to the table,
554
00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:46.000
you know, and how does he think and how does
555
00:28:46.039 --> 00:28:48.279
he analyze the problem? And so you get to know
556
00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:50.920
people that way. It doesn't take that much time. You
557
00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:53.720
peel the layer of who he would Oh, Vanessa, she's
558
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:56.400
a psychologist. She knows a lot about team, you know,
559
00:28:57.079 --> 00:28:59.920
and so then you need you end up using this
560
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.920
skills more understanding asking them questions. By the way, there's
561
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:07.880
no there's nothing that builds respect more or if signals
562
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:10.400
belonging more than if someone in the team asks you
563
00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:13.680
a question. Then if I say, hey, Clint, you're the
564
00:29:13.720 --> 00:29:16.799
expert on project management, what do you think about blah blah?
565
00:29:17.640 --> 00:29:19.680
You know how often does that happen in the team?
566
00:29:20.119 --> 00:29:21.920
And if they look you're in the eye and not
567
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:23.880
looking at their phone while they say it, that's even better.
568
00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:30.200
Or here you went to Georgia Tech. Hey, how about you? Like,
569
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:33.000
what's Georgia Tech? Like? What's your messout?
570
00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:34.680
Oh the yellow jackets?
571
00:29:35.240 --> 00:29:39.119
Yellow jackets? Okay, so but you know anything like that,
572
00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:39.920
whatever it is.
573
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.240
But anyway, I think that matters too because when we
574
00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:48.039
do big projects, the team can be global and there's
575
00:29:48.039 --> 00:29:50.400
always this thing about well everybody's the expert. Just let
576
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:51.839
them do their thing and we'll figure out how to
577
00:29:51.839 --> 00:29:53.960
work together. But what we do is we bring people
578
00:29:53.960 --> 00:29:56.400
together in a room face to face for a week
579
00:29:56.839 --> 00:29:58.799
and plan the project and what And people say, but
580
00:29:58.839 --> 00:30:00.759
why do you do that? Because what I need to
581
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:02.359
do is I need to convert you from what it's
582
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:05.160
an email address which I feel no connection, and do
583
00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:07.160
I form some bond with you? And I formed that
584
00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:10.000
bond through having coffee with you on one morning, walk
585
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:13.039
bumping into in the hallway, talking about learning about your family,
586
00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:15.759
your kids, you know. And when we do all those things,
587
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:18.680
we found we can run complex twenty four thirty six
588
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.279
month projects remotely if we form those bonds, and if
589
00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:24.400
we just bring people together face to face for a week,
590
00:30:25.160 --> 00:30:27.480
which is a cost, I understand that. But the bond
591
00:30:27.519 --> 00:30:29.599
gy form that lets you run everything else. And now
592
00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:32.200
I feel accountable to you because now you're a human being,
593
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:34.839
not just an email address exactly.
594
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.759
You know, and we know that people who talk more
595
00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:40.640
even when they don't talk about work, but this is
596
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:43.640
research out of them, this guy named Sandy Pantlin. I
597
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:46.400
can say more about it if you're interested. They end
598
00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:49.599
up sharing more information, they end up being higher performers,
599
00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:51.440
and they don't have to be talking about work. They
600
00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:54.039
can just be shooting the you know, the football or
601
00:30:54.039 --> 00:30:57.079
the baseball or whatever it is you're interested in. But
602
00:30:57.519 --> 00:30:59.559
just a quick little personal aside where we're talking about
603
00:30:59.559 --> 00:31:02.440
personal store. I'm actually on sabbatical right now and I'm
604
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:06.359
in London, and I used to teach team emotional intelligence
605
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:10.319
and emotional intelligence at University College London. They used to
606
00:31:10.319 --> 00:31:13.200
bring me in once a year to the Bartlet School,
607
00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:16.359
which is the construction school. So all these people who
608
00:31:16.359 --> 00:31:21.079
were learning project management for large construction projects. I used
609
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:23.480
to come in for a day or two and teach them.
610
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:26.920
And this is at the university year. It was so fun.
611
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:28.359
That's one of the reasons why I came back to
612
00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:30.640
London for my sabbaticals because it was so fun. Say,
613
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.200
we're so smart those project managers. They asked such great
614
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:36.400
questions and you know it's huge. I mean, you can't
615
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:40.960
make big mistakes in those cases. Those are huge. You know.
616
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:42.880
It's funny. We talked about the social part of it.
617
00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:44.440
I was going to get to this later, but I'll
618
00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:47.119
bring it in now because it's the natural place. I've
619
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:48.960
been on the project for one of our clients for
620
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:51.519
about the last four years, and as an innovation project
621
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:54.720
at a global beverage company. And it's funny because at
622
00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:57.480
the early stages we had a lot of marketing and
623
00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:01.000
a lot of scientists working together, and so we had
624
00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:03.599
like a marketing lead and a tech lead, and that
625
00:32:03.720 --> 00:32:06.160
the marketing lead got on the on the call first.
626
00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:08.440
I love her and what she'd do is she would
627
00:32:08.440 --> 00:32:10.359
be like how is your weekend? How are you doing?
628
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:12.400
And we know what's going on you we're oh, happy birthday,
629
00:32:12.440 --> 00:32:15.240
Happy annebur I mean she was very social and then
630
00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:17.640
if the if the scientists leave would come on, it
631
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:19.559
was you know, she was more She's a very friendly
632
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:21.880
person and lovely as well, but she was really more Okay,
633
00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:24.039
let's get to the facts, let's get it going. And
634
00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:26.839
I found that together they worked really well. But the
635
00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:29.319
challenge was if we let the first lady go too long,
636
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:32.400
we'd spend forty five minutes talking about good stuff and
637
00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:35.559
only fifteen minutes talking about the stuff. We really came together.
638
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:37.640
So how do you balance that because there has to
639
00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:40.440
be a balance, right Otherwise as an engineer, I don't
640
00:32:40.440 --> 00:32:42.079
want to jump right to the facts. But then I
641
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:44.480
lose You lose that bonding that you need.
642
00:32:45.400 --> 00:32:48.359
Oh my gosh, it's so true. So first of all,
643
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:50.359
one of the things you know, I know you've looked
644
00:32:50.359 --> 00:32:51.759
at the book. One of the things you'll see in
645
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:54.400
for each of the norms, I say, I've created a
646
00:32:55.079 --> 00:32:58.880
table that says too much, just right, too little, that
647
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:01.039
tells you you cause you can do any of these
648
00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:03.680
norms too much. Getting to know people and just isn't
649
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:05.839
one more thing. Let me say that you got to
650
00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:09.680
remember that we learn these norms from studying the highest
651
00:33:09.799 --> 00:33:14.160
performing teams, the top ten percent of teams in lots
652
00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:17.759
of different organizations, and so they didn't waste time doing
653
00:33:17.799 --> 00:33:20.480
this stuff. So for example, getting to know one another
654
00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:24.240
with a check in, just like that, quick thirty seconds
655
00:33:24.519 --> 00:33:27.640
per person or eighteen seconds per personal, whatever it is.
656
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:29.799
You know, what are you nervous about? What are you
657
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:32.440
excited about? Right now? Blah blah blah. Everybody goes around.
658
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:35.079
You don't waste a lot of time on it, but
659
00:33:35.160 --> 00:33:39.119
you do it. And so I every norm in our
660
00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:42.200
model is designed to be done while you're doing the work.
661
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:46.640
You do need to kickstart by first deciding which norms
662
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:49.839
you want to focus on, because every team's different, and
663
00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:51.640
so you do need to have a longer meeting to
664
00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:53.680
kickstart it. But then once you're doing it, there are
665
00:33:53.680 --> 00:33:55.440
all these are all things you do while you're doing
666
00:33:55.440 --> 00:33:58.200
the work. That's the only thing I can say. I
667
00:33:58.200 --> 00:33:59.640
can say it doesn't have to do. The other thing
668
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:01.680
is the men Any of the norms you get more
669
00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:04.559
efficient with more often you do it. So one of them,
670
00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.159
as I mentioned in the second cluster. It's really about assessment,
671
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:11.159
and so we talk about the importance of checking and saying, Okay,
672
00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:13.000
what are we doing well right now? What do we
673
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:16.440
need to change right? And the more often you do that,
674
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:19.800
the faster you get at it right. People start to
675
00:34:19.800 --> 00:34:21.440
trust that you are going to make changes, and they'll
676
00:34:21.480 --> 00:34:23.760
say more things, they'll say it faster, it doesn't take
677
00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:26.039
so long. That's what we see in the Great teams.
678
00:34:26.239 --> 00:34:29.119
So I'm with you, and I think it's it makes
679
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:31.559
you feel more of a part of the group than
680
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:33.719
if you just jump right into the task and it's all.
681
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:36.480
I'm more excited about coming to the meeting when there
682
00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:37.719
was gonna be a little bit of banter on the
683
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:40.199
front end than if it's just about our show the facts, right.
684
00:34:41.159 --> 00:34:45.480
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but yeah, some say, yeah, I know,
685
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:46.280
you've got other questions.
686
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:48.199
So it's kind of like if you nobody will know
687
00:34:48.199 --> 00:34:50.280
this unless you're of a certain age. But Dragnet when
688
00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:52.039
I was a kid, was always a big show. Yeah,
689
00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:55.280
the detective. I think Detective Friday was like just the facts, ma'am,
690
00:34:55.679 --> 00:34:59.519
and he was stoic guy. There's no fun at all
691
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:01.159
in his demeanor.
692
00:35:02.199 --> 00:35:03.480
Yeah, that was a great show.
693
00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:06.840
So you describe the team leader as needs to be
694
00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:09.199
a culture manager, and what does that look like in
695
00:35:09.239 --> 00:35:09.920
real behavior?
696
00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:18.159
Okay, that looks like recognizing that teamwork is about building
697
00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:22.440
relationships among the members. So if you think about teams
698
00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:26.079
as systems, then you recognize it's all about the interactions, right,
699
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:30.800
And it's those interactions that either build the trust et
700
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:33.960
cetera to meet one another's needs, like the need to belong.
701
00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:37.920
So you can't make yourself belong in a team you
702
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:40.679
bite it in by others. You know, it's real. It's
703
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:43.440
really interesting research on that about how the more you
704
00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:44.920
try to get in, you know, it's kind of like
705
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:46.679
the middle school kid that comes over and sits at
706
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:51.880
the table, Hey can I get in here? You can't,
707
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.039
So you need to build culture management is building those
708
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:58.360
norms this, for example, starting with the check in and
709
00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:02.519
knowing that that's going to build some respect for everyone, right,
710
00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:04.960
or like you were talking about making sure that when
711
00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:08.679
you're facilitating, you're hearing from everybody you know. And so
712
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:13.119
the norms in our model are designed to build that
713
00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:17.960
community and that is the culture that you build. And
714
00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:19.960
by the way, it can be a little bit more
715
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:23.039
task focused and it can be a little more relationship focused.
716
00:36:23.239 --> 00:36:25.760
So what I find is that the model is good
717
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:29.159
for people who are a little too relationship focused, like
718
00:36:29.159 --> 00:36:31.719
you're talking about, because it's very tasky. A lot of
719
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:35.719
the norms are very tasky. And then the opposite is
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also true. So you know, you've got to you got
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to be a culture manager. You've got to manage how
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people interact, how we do it here and make sure
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it's bringing out the best and working well for the team.
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Okay, so now I know I know two facts. I
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know that you can't give yourself a nickname, it has
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to come from others. And you can't forge yourself into
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a team. You have to be invited in. I got it.
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00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:01.920
You have to be invited. Yes, really interesting, isn't it. Well.
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That concludes Part one of my conversation with doctor Vanessa Dresscat,
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Associate professor at the University of New Hampshire and author
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of The Emotionally Intelligent Team. Coming up in part two,
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Dodtor Dresscat discusses the importance of trust and high performance teams.
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I just read this study by the way, that was
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done by McKinsey came out in twenty twenty four where
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they found they looked at all these different variables about
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what mattered to teams, what mattered, what account of for
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00:37:26.360 --> 00:37:30.199
the most, you know, higher performance, and a whole bunch
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of variables, and the one that popped out most often
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was trust. And that said that teams with trust performed
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five times higher than teams without trust. Think about it, so,
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what is that about? You interact, you share information, you support,
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you build on one another's ideas. You know it's trust
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is the grease for the wheel?
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Right, Thanks for listening to the conversation. To find out
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00:37:58.599 --> 00:38:03.239
more about Clinton, go to clintonmpaget dot com and pick
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00:38:03.280 --> 00:38:08.159
up Clint's book How Teams Triumph Managing by Commitments at Amazon.
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00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:13.199
The Conversation with Clinton m Paget is a production of
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Forbes Books.