Creating Alignment in Teams with Wade Kingsley

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Welcome everyone to Cuppa TV.
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It is Cookie here for our brilliant show Lessons from Leaders, where we pick the brains and learn more from those people that are working with leaders across the country or are leaders themselves.
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And it's brewed with our perfect partners for this show.
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It is Nespresso Professional.
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You can't even see that.
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Yeah, it is there.
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Look at that.
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I've got my Nespresso ready.
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And we are ready to have a really good conversation today with one of my good mates.
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His name is Wade Kingsley.
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And we're going to be bringing him in very, very soon.
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Now, before I kick it off, I just want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connections to land, water and community.
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I pay my respects to them and to their elders, both past and present.
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I always want to say thanks to the First Nations leaders, elders and storytellers who have graced their community.
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presence within the couple walls here.
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It is a learning journey that I have absolutely loved and will continue to go on.
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Now, if you haven't met Wade Kingsley, well, today, you're going to be not only surprised, but you're going to learn so much about what it means to create alignment within your teams.
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And Wade shared with me some of the insights that he's getting from working with teams all across the country around this whole area of team alignment.
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And I went, you know what, we need this for lessons from leaders because it is a topic area that all leaders need to lean in on, especially as we're bringing teams back and we're wanting to perform at the levels that we need to.
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Now, Wade is a leading authority on creative.
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He's had over 25 years plus experience in leadership experience in media marketing and includes roles at Nova, Southern Cross Austereo and also Dentsu.
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He's the founder of Ideas Business, named in the AFR's top 100 growing companies where he helps organisations unlock creativity.
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to drive innovation and also problem solving.
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As an ambassador, Australian ambassador of World Creativity and Innovation Week and hosts the Creative Coach podcast, Wade is widely recognised for making creativity practical, purposeful and also impactful for teams.
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Let's bring in Wade right now.
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Wade, welcome to Lessons from Leaders, mate.
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So good to bring you back.
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G'day, Hooky.
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How are you?
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I've got my Nespresso here.
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I don't have the logo on the cup though.
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Is that all right?
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That's my fault for not sending you a cup.
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I'm enjoying it regardless.
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It's delicious.
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That's fantastic.
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Wade, I'm so glad that you're back on.
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It has been a while since we've actually sat down and had a cuppa together.
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And I remember when we caught up, you've been very busy helping big companies right now.
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And I remember when we sat down and you told me about this whole, I go, what's the biggest issue that you're seeing in business?
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And you're saying alignment.
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And I went, you know what, like that's the topic area that I think we need to go in on.
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And like just leading into this, mate, you've spent much of your career helping teams unlock this creativity and, you know, big ideas and all that type of stuff.
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When you think about the best teams that you've worked in, what made it feel like it was truly aligned?
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Well, it's a good call out cookie because just as a little bit of a backstory to get us going, most of my time has been spent as a workshop facilitator around creative problem solving.
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So I think hackathons, big ideas days, classic butcher's paper, post-it notes, generating ideas, usually around creative problem solving or innovation.
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And something different happened off the back of COVID where,
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I had a lot of the clients that I work with start to recognise the same thing.
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Now, they couldn't articulate what it was, but the word they mostly used was we feel a bit disconnected as a team.
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Now, for some people, depending on where you lived during COVID, it was a physical disconnection.
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You know, we were locked down or we're now remote working more.
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For other people, it was just a sense of the world's changed and the things that we used to rely on those experiences.
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individual team idiosyncrasies that helped us connect with each other seemed to have evolved, change or in some cases go missing.
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So the light bulb moment for me was I started thinking about, because I'm a problem solver, what can we do about this?
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What can we do about this?
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First, we have to identify what it is.
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And the first place I started was just this notion that alignment is starting to become
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An area where we used to take it for granted that we would have teams all swimming in the same direction.
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We provide a great culture and remunerate them well.
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And and therefore teamwork would happen as a result.
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And the reason I'm sort of zeroing in on creating alignment is because I think about the teams I've worked in.
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And there were three kind of secret ingredients, I think, carried them through, even though we didn't really articulate them at the time.
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But they've come to the surface now, I think.
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The first one is shared ambition.
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You know, this isn't mission or vision because mission and vision can sometimes feel disconnected from board level to C-suite to individual worker.
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Having a shared vision is where are we going today?
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Yeah.
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It's not what do we want to achieve?
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It's where we're going today, where we're going this week, where we're going this month, where we're going this quarter.
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And I think putting a timeframe on it is actually quite an important part because most people turn up to their jobs every day and try their best.
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But it's really, really hard to say, well, I feel like what I've done today is,
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look at the vision, to make ourselves the most innovative and amazing company in the world.
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And I think leaders can see that more clearly than perhaps the vast majority of the workforce do.
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So shared ambition is one.
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Number two, I think there's some invisible language that happens in teams when they're aligned.
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And I think about teams that I've worked in or led.
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It's almost like there's unspoken things.
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Someone can look for a certain way in a meeting and you go, oh, I know what they mean by that.
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or someone's having trouble with a potential person in the team or a teamwork aspect.
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And it's kind of this knowing language, this kind of look, see, even just shorthand language, which help delivers that.
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So I think that's another important thing.
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And the third thing, I think, on top of the shared ambition and the invisible language is this notion that you're supported no matter what.
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And I think that's a lot.
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You know, if you feel like, I mean, I'm a dad, you're a dad, the unconditional love and support we give our kids doesn't mean they get away with everything.
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But no matter what, we love them, yeah, no matter where they go in life or what challenges they find themselves up against, we love them.
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And I think teams that are really aligned, there's that beautiful moment where everyone feels supported without having to ask for it.
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Something's happened.
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Someone's volunteered.
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Hey, I can see you're struggling.
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Can I help you with that?
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Yeah.
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support is open and support is transparent.
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And it's not just support when you fall over.
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I'll help you get back up again.
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It's support before you fall over.
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It's the, just so you know, no matter what happens, I've got you.
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I've got your back.
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So in the teams that I've kind of worked in and I've kind of,
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condensing sort of 20 years of working and leading teams in the creative spaces here and what I'm seeing around post-COVID kind of misalignment.
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It's those three things, shared ambition, invisible language and support no matter what, which I think kind of opens up the conversation.
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I love how you shared that and I love that first one too, like the shared ambition, because I think we go into our roles and we just...
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We're just in this cycle of just getting things done, procedures, policies, you know, everything.
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And sometimes I think that silo mentality is why we're leading where we are today in workplaces.
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And, you know, we just did a really, really loud last session for Lessons from Leaders was around the great disconnect.
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And, you know, how do we bring connection back to the workplace?
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Because there is a lot of people out there feeling that grind.
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When it comes to team alignment, like what does that actually mean to you?
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I know you've gone through these three things, but what's the sense that you feel when you know that you are in that alignment?
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Well, achievement is where it's at.
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And that's why I guess I'm kind of really honing in on practical things today, practical things that leaders can do to bring this alignment.
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Because, you know, I've been in C-suite roles, you've been in C-suite roles, and it's really easy to coalesce around a strategic goal at that level because you understand why and you understand how to get there and you also understand your role in it.
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And I think there's this kind of gap between vision, strategic goals, and we need to make budget.
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There's this big gap in the middle because budget's the outcome, obviously.
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There's this bit in the middle, which is instructional.
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It's instructional for people in how to get it.
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So when I look at alignment, it's almost like everyone is clear on what they have to do.
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Now, this isn't about position descriptions per se, although they're a useful instrument.
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It's about if I walk into any office in the building or any room or jump on any Zoom meeting and I ask people what we're trying to achieve, that they can clearly and consistently articulate that as one.
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It's not someone going, oh, we're here to be the world's greatest provider of blood.
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And someone else goes, oh, no, we're here to make budget.
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No, no.
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What we want to be able to do is we want to crystallise what it is.
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And alignment means we all understand where we're going.
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And I think the time factor is the critical missing ingredient.
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I've done thousands of workshops to create vision, values, mission, all those kind of things.
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And they're great.
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I'm not dismissing those.
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They'd certainly play a role.
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But I would bet if I go back to any one of those thousand and say, do you remember what they are?
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They'd still have to look on the wall at the poster or on the mouse pad.
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This is about finding language and finding communication tools which people can call on in a moment when they've got a decision to make.
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And I think, you know, true alignment, when you get to that stage, when everything's clicking, we often hear that word, we just click, the end result is high performance all the time.
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Is there a difference between agreement and alignment?
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Yes, a very big difference.
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And look, I don't know if this is just me coming from the creative spaces in terms of my career journey, but what you have to remember is without deviation from the norm, progress isn't possible.
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You know, if we're doing what we've always done, we're gonna go where we always go.
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And that applies to any industry.
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Now in creative and media and marketing industries I play in, it's kind of baked in, it's the DNA of the industry.
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People come in not to do the same work, they come in to do work that's gonna make a difference and continue to grow and change.
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But in all the other industries I've worked in across banking, finance, tech, engineering, law, there's been lots of industries I've been involved with now in terms of the work that I do.
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And one thing that I think happens is when you've got a culture of agreement, it's subservient to the person who's making that, right?
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But what you really want to do with alignment is be subservient to the mission, not the end result.
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You want to be subservient to the mission.
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And if you're subservient to the mission, you all understand what you're there to do.
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And it helps you provide that navigation point when things invariably go astray, when you have high turnover, when the pressure builds, when you're having performance issues, revenue challenges, whatever that might look like.
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is if you can actually get people to align on the reason why we're doing things and where we're going it's much better than agreement and and if you think about this in an innovation context
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if you are continually agreeing, it's less likely you're going to head in an area that's going to be different or a growth opportunity for your industry.
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If you're actually inviting those differences in, because agreement means we all agree on this, alignment means we all agree on the direction to go.
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Now, how we get there and how we come at it and our different experiences, what we bring to it is that diversity that brings out the innovative solutions, the creativity, the problem solving.
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That's what we actually want.
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If it's just a manufacturing line and you stand there and you just look at everything going past, then sure, you probably want agreement.
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But in most teams, what you want is alignment.
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Alignment, not agreement.
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I hear a lot from companies, mate, because ever since COVID, and I'm sure it was happening before that, but ever since COVID,
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teams have gone through such rapid change, and there's more change coming.
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There's teams that have been, you know, we're hearing a lot from the banking industry at the moment with a lot of, you know, jobs being changed, resources change.
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How does that impact the potential of alignment happening when there's so much change fatigue that has happened for individuals inside their business?
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Well, actually, alignment helps that, which might feel counterintuitive.
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But let me give you an example.
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If you've got a hierarchical structure where the leaders are determining the path and that's what they're paid to do, so that's no fault of theirs, but they're doing that, right?
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But then what happens is the leader changes for whatever reason.
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And we've seen a lot of examples in corporate Australia, even over the last week, where leadership has changed suddenly.
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Right.
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What happens is, is often that agreement leaves the door with them because it was their thing.
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You know, we're all agreeing to do this.
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In other words, I'm telling you what to do and we all have to follow along.
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But when you have alignment, think of it more like a sporting team, right?
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And this has happened a lot, particularly I'm an AFL fan and I'm an Essendon fan, but we'll leave that bit out for a moment.
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I'm an AFL fan.
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And what's happened from AFL over the last sort of 10, 20 years, it's gone from being position players where you pick someone based on being the best in their position.
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You're picking the best A team because if someone gets injured, the infrastructure that surrounds that plan stays the same.
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And what I look for in teams and workforces now is –
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If the alignment is all agreed to, as in like we agree on how to align, right?
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We're going to do it with a conscious choice.
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But then we know where we're going and know why we're doing it.
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It means that with any changes of personnel in particular, the thing keeps moving along.
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And what you potentially could do is bring in some more diversity or more different points of view.
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When it comes to achieving goals, same thing.
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Let's say we've got the best intentions.
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We've got a great aligned team, but we miss a target or a client doesn't fly with us.
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it doesn't mean that there's a problem with the alignment.
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But if we're in the agreement phase, it's like, well, this is the way we're going to make that money.
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Do we all agree?
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Yes.
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And then when that doesn't happen, it completely undercuts all the work that's been done.
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But, you know, being a sports fan, I don't know about you, but you can certainly watch any sport, team sport,
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And you can, within the first five minutes of any match, of any sport, you can tell if a team is aligned or misaligned.
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In my case, sadly, in the last recent times, it's been more misaligned.
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And that's playing out now in the public headlines for anyone who's following what's going on in AFL.
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But when you watch anything or watch an activity of a team, it's kind of that knowing thing.
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You can look at it and go, gee, these, and usually the phrase is, gee, they seem really connected.
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They seem really in tune with each other.
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And I call that alignment because they've made a conscious choice to align before they go about task.
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I'm looking at it from a rugby league angle and I know we're getting into sport, which is probably not what we should be doing, but Penrith Panthers have won the last four years.
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They've lost so many players, but no matter what player comes in there, they know their role and they know where the direction is and they win more premierships.
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And I can understand what you're saying there because I was questioning the fact that far out employees just feel fatigued with change.
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Like can they still be aligned with everything going on inside their business?
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And, yeah,
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You answered that really well, Wade, so thank you for that.
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Where are companies really getting it wrong, though, at the moment?
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Like, where are they getting it wrong?
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Like, if you said to a – from what you're saying, you can almost rattle off probably the top few things that they're just not doing the simple things right.
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Yeah, I would say this is a bit controversial, but because we're in the context of talking about lessons from leaders, I'm going to put this in a leadership sense, a leadership sense for this call, is that they don't spend enough time communicating what the ambition is.
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You know, I think what happens is when people come to work and they start to feel more and more disconnected or less and less involved, and they don't have a line of sight consistently.
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And when I say consistently about communication, I'm talking daily.
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I'm not talking once a year at the offsite.
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I'm not talking every quarter at the all hands.
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I'm not talking about on the whiteboard with the revenue results.
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I'm talking about a daily commitment for leaders to communicate what we are doing here.
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And it doesn't matter if you're in pet food or finance or wherever it is.
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remembering it's not about a number because the number is the outcome.
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The target, the money we make or whatever we're doing in this organisation, whatever our outcome is, that's the end result.
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It's not about purpose because that starts us there.
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It's all of the decisions that are made every single day.
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It's how someone on the front line deals with the customer.
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It's how someone who's monitoring the chat, if there is a human monitoring the chat, it's how they then navigate that for the customer or the person making inquiry.
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It's how we show up to team events.
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It's how we help each other when we solve problems.
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And I just, my sense is of all the teams I've worked with where it's coming to me as a project to help fix the alignment, if I'm doing sort of a post-mortem on where they're up to now, I would say nine out of 10 would be communication, not frequent and not clear.
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And of those nine out of 10, all of them would disagree with me.
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They'd all go, no, we're really good at communication.
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We're amazing.
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Oh, look at this.
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We do the all hands.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Cool.
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But when someone's dealing with a customer, what have they got in their head?
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they won't have your mission and vision they might think oh yeah it's something to do with being the best at blood they might be thinking about what they need to do i need to make the sale to hit a target but what you really want them to do is know how to behave know how to support each other and when when they're clear on the ambition and clear how to um manifest that and bring it to life that's the big difference and that is a leader's responsibility a leader should be communicating more than they think
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And they should be communicating more constantly and more clearly than they think.
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There's no such thing.
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I've never met a company that goes, oh, we communicate way too much.
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Oh, there's too much communication around here.
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Like we can't possibly learn anymore or hear anymore.
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So let's say we haven't reached the ceiling of that yet in terms of communication.
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And sometimes you feel like a bit repetitive and like I have to say it again and people might feel they're patronised.
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But the difference is people get it and they understand what they need to do.
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You're nailing this today, mate.
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Thank you.
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Because I think people will be nodding their head and going, you know what, I can maybe even see this in my organisation.
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And I suppose I want to go deeper on that.
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So let's say you're a leader of a team, not necessarily organisation, but a leader of the team.
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Yep.
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How do you spot when your team is misaligned?
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Like what are some of the things that you'll start to see appearing?
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Again, just to make that leader realise that maybe my team right now is a bit misaligned.
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Yeah, I think the first place to usually start is when you feel like you're a little bit out of the loop as a leader.
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You know, of all the, if I talk about those companies I've worked with that think they're communicating really well, another common trait is they might say, when they say, I don't feel like we're connected or I don't feel like we're aligned, is usually kind of the way that gets introduced to me in terms of doing an alignment project.
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The very first place I start is what evidence do you have?
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What makes you say that?
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What's happening?
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Yeah.
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And usually it starts with, oh, that's just a sense.
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I feel like we used to be this and now we're that.
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But when you actually dig in and kind of get the granular detail, and I love taking a brief, I've got to say, it's my favorite thing to do is take a brief and really understand the problem before we go and solve the problem, is what tends to happen a lot is people say, well, I used to be involved in a lot more, or people would come to me for advice.
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Or, you know, the leader out of the loop is the thing.
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Sometimes you don't see it until it's sort of more plainly obvious to you because you're busy doing leader things and you're busy working with this kind of team, not necessarily that kind of team, but this team here are looking to you.
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And so I think, and it goes back to that point about communication, if you're starting to feel like there could be some misalignment is how I'm framing it, there's going to be a period of
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we're communicating less or I'm finding out less or I'm finding out later.
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I worked with an organisation a month or so ago and the proof point they brought up was we're finding out things too late.
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And I'm like, we'll define what too late means.
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We used to find out these things same day.
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Something went wrong, we'd find out.
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We'd get on the Slack, we'd all talk about it.
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Now I'm finding it out later.
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And I'm like, so you might think that's someone hiding information for you, but I see that as misalignment because if you share what the ambition is and you share the path that you're on,
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And one of the things you articulated is fast responses.
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Let's say that's one of the things you come out of that exercise with is then it's not subjective at that point.
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It's like, no matter what the problem is, we deal with it.
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And that goes back to that first step I talked about, about feeling supported.
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You know, it's got to feel like that unconditional support sort of stuff.
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So one of the things that I created in my sort of world was what I call alignment codes.
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And alignment codes have kind of got a bit of a history.
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They haven't been labelled that.
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I've labelled them that.
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And then I've gone and created a set of them, which I'm happy to walk you through.
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But if you think about mission, mission usually says something along the lines of, we want to be dot, dot, dot, or we will be dot, dot, dot.
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vision is the outcome of the work that you do.
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You know, this is how we do it.
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But an alignment code shows people how to behave and how to act.
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And, you know, if I think about some famous ones, the one that most people know when I talk about this is Ted Lasso with Believe.
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You know, even if you didn't watch the show, you've probably seen something online with Ted Lasso and he sticks the big yellow sticker up in the change room and says Believe.
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Believe.
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Now, there's a good and a bad with that.
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The good is it's a single point of focus.
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It's very clear.
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It's very easy to understand.
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Bad part about that is how do you teach people how to believe?
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It's not something you can say, hey, you, believe.
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Now you, believe.
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It doesn't work like that, right?
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No.
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It comes through the actions and behaviours.
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So one that I have done a lot of work around, and this might be familiar to either AFL or Sydney people, is Paul Ruse's No Dickheads.
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So Paul Ruse had this phrase that he had in The Swans was no dickheads.
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And what that meant was a really clear and simple articulation to every single person in the organisation in how to make a decision right there.
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For example, someone on the phone talking to a member and the member's really pissing them off and they're like, I demand this and I demand that.
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By saying no dickheads in the mind of the Swans person, they're able to say, I'm not going to be a dickhead about how I deal with you.
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I'm going to be really sympathetic.
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I'm going to hear you out even if I disagree with you.
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They're going to do that.
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If you're a recruiter and you're sitting in front of a potential player and you think most talented, amazing, would great for the club,
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but behaviour question mark, you've got no dickheads in your mind.
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You're like, I'm bringing a dickhead into the environment and we've said that's not us.
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So what I've sort of taken as sort of inspiration out of those is to create what I call alignment codes, and there's five things that make up the alignment codes.
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The first one is ambition, is to actually articulate what is our ambition as a team, not as a company, but as real humans working with each other.
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What's our teamwork ambition?
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What do we want to be looked at?
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I'll give you an example.
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I did a session earlier this year for a group.
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And I won't say who they are because these are all confidential to these companies.
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Right.
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But I'll just give you a flavor of it.
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And they started down the path of we want to be the best.
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We want to be the biggest.
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And I said, well, that their outcomes, you can only be the best and the biggest by doing things.
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So what are you doing?
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One they ended up with is we want to be the most envied team in our industry.
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And I'm like, that is very controllable.
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You can be the most envy because the behaviors that underpin that, you can articulate and you control.
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It's about how you show up.
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It's about how you work with suppliers.
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It's about how you work with your customers, how you work with each other.
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And the metric they put on themselves is the number of people cold calling and asking if they've got any jobs going, right?
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So there's something really clear in terms of the teamwork.
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They've got their ambitions sorted.
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So that's number one.
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The second one is the attitude.
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What attitude are we going to have?
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You know, when things go wrong, how are we going to solve them?
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When things are great, how do we celebrate them?
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What's our attitude?
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The second one is communication.
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Third one is communication.
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How do we communicate with each other?
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What's our style?
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What's our language?
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Is it formal, informal?
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Is it Slack?
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Is it phone calls?
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Is it texts?
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Is it no email Fridays?
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Like what's the way we choose to build our teamwork through communication?
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The fourth one is collaboration.
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How do we collaborate with each other beyond communication?
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So when we're working on a joint project or this joint responsibility, how do we do that?
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And the last one I think is arguably the most important is accountability.
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How do we get each other accountable to this?
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Because it's not just the leader's role to drive accountability.
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In high-performing teams, accountability comes from within.
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It comes from the team members keeping each other accountable.
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And accountability isn't always a negative word.
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Accountability is like we did what we said we were going to do.
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We said we were going to have the best time ever working here.
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Are we doing that?
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No.
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We need some more accountability to that, guys.
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We need to find a way to make that happen.
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So if you imagine this is kind of like, and, you know, in the sessions I do with teams around building these alignment codes, which are unique to every organization because they're in your own words and your own phrases.
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It's not me saying this is what you should do, is think of it in an image form where there's an ambition sort of going around the circle.
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And then the four quadrants of the circle are attitude, communication, collaboration and accountability.
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And what you then have is something that people can practically use.
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Right.
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They can actually use it in conversation.
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One that I love, I was working with a company that works in regional Australia and when they were working on that communication one in a workshop environment, I'm saying, well, what do you think your communication style is?
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And they were trying to find the right words and trying to be all clever around it.
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And someone said, well, we just try and keep things like, just direct, be direct.
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And what they decided their alignment code for communication was don't beat around the bush.
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Now, don't beat around the bush is a phrase that works for them because it's historically associated with regional areas, right?
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So what they do then is when they're in a meeting, this is way after we've finished the exercise and they've got it in place, six months later, someone in a meeting is rabbiting on for too long.
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They go, don't beat around the bush.
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And in that single moment, everyone understands what's going on.
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They don't need to say, stop talking or you're not relevant or we don't want to hear it.
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They say, don't beat around the bush.
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It's their alignment code.
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And very quickly, they align around the fact that they've agreed the communication style has to be shortened to the point.
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You know, sometimes I don't know why this happens, but sometimes like yesterday we had a massive conversation.
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You know, we're building a really strong ecosystem as you're aware of way with all these great people in our midst like you and others that are, you know, wanting to help others in many different facets of life.
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And someone brought up yesterday, like, what is, what do we stand for?
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And how does everyone who's coming into this ecosystem actually know what our goal is?
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rules of engagement are is the words that came out yesterday in this space.
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And like you just like that, A, I need to have a chat to you after this.
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But B, like that was just so clear in how people can really, you know,
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make sure that people are aligned from day one especially new people that are coming into the business this is our code this is our language this is what we do this is how we communicate this is um this is how we're accountable to each other like it's it's incredible man and um you would see a little thing ticker going across the screen right now if you want to tap into the brain of wage you can via um the link that is in the show notes um but wait what's the performance cost of misalignment like do you ever get to the granular of like
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how you talk to businesses going, you know what, if we don't sort this out right now, this is the impact that you're going to continue to see.
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Yeah, it's a time factor and time being money, right?
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So what we tend to see in teams that come in and go, we feel like we're misaligned, we can't articulate it, but there's something going on, do the alignment work.
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The thing we hear reported back is we save so much time now.
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And the time is because we've created shortcut codes for them to skip over everything that you need to be able to do to try and understand.
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to be able to have that clarity of that regular ambition being communicated by leaders and the team themselves.
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Time is the number one sort of reported piece of feedback.
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I think also what you notice is, and when we do the sessions, we kind of set this up with examples from other teams around the world.
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We get people to nominate, do they think this team's aligned or misaligned and why?
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So we go through that sort of exercise just to prime everyone into that sort of thinking.
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But one thing that we always come back to
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is that you should not think of your teamwork in past tense.
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Now, what that means is quite often the usage of teamwork is in past tense, such as, you know what?
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That was really great teamwork.
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Well done everyone.
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Or, you know what?
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Our teamwork was a bit off on that.
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We need to fix that.
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And it's looking backwards.
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The looking forward model is we need to create teamwork.
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Like everything else, if you're creating a product or service,
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anything that you're doing in your business, you also have to create teamwork.
406
00:30:50.678 --> 00:30:56.339
It doesn't just happen because you want it to happen and it doesn't just happen by having the right people in the right roles in the right rooms.
407
00:30:56.879 --> 00:30:59.679
It's about saying, what does our teamwork look like?
408
00:30:59.739 --> 00:31:01.920
How are we going to articulate our teamwork?
409
00:31:02.180 --> 00:31:08.081
Because if we can articulate our teamwork, then we can articulate the results really clearly and we know how we go about it every day.
410
00:31:08.201 --> 00:31:11.481
Anyone in any location, anyone in any position can do it.
411
00:31:12.101 --> 00:31:15.222
And I think that when we kind of keep
412
00:31:15.902 --> 00:31:20.506
You know, in our sessions, we keep framing it back to that point around you have to create teamwork.
413
00:31:21.167 --> 00:31:26.792
It makes a more conscious decision and therefore you pay more attention to it and therefore you also feel more accountable to the process.
414
00:31:27.192 --> 00:31:31.155
You know, you're spending time and money helping to create codes that help you align.
415
00:31:31.616 --> 00:31:33.878
Well, the return on investment is you have to align.
416
00:31:34.078 --> 00:31:36.340
Like it's not something and it's not agree.
417
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:39.123
Like I've had plenty of situations in workshops where we've got
418
00:31:39.723 --> 00:31:43.245
You know, we divide into small groups and come up with an alignment code for communication.
419
00:31:43.265 --> 00:31:45.787
And this group up here, you do accountability.
420
00:31:46.307 --> 00:31:50.450
And there's some healthy discussion around what's right and what's not, right?
421
00:31:50.870 --> 00:31:53.072
And at the end of it, we go, this is a good example of teamwork.
422
00:31:53.092 --> 00:31:54.352
Because you don't all have to agree.
423
00:31:54.553 --> 00:31:58.815
It's not majority rules or everyone put a little sticky dot on the one you like the most.
424
00:31:59.196 --> 00:32:00.757
It's what do you think you can align around?
425
00:32:01.457 --> 00:32:04.240
What is something that's used in a practical situation?
426
00:32:04.321 --> 00:32:08.445
Bring it back to something that's happening in your workplace right now and think about this code.
427
00:32:08.465 --> 00:32:09.427
Would it be helpful to you?
428
00:32:09.507 --> 00:32:16.935
And very quickly what you find is people go, actually that sounds really good on paper, but I can't imagine ever using that or it doesn't feel like it's very instructional.
429
00:32:17.516 --> 00:32:22.141
And then they go, actually, this one, like the don't beat around the bush example, I would say that in a meeting.
430
00:32:22.641 --> 00:32:24.423
I'm not going to say to someone, please stop talking.
431
00:32:25.044 --> 00:32:26.425
You've been talking too much.
432
00:32:26.465 --> 00:32:29.929
Let other people have a go because I feel anxious about saying that in a meeting.
433
00:32:30.189 --> 00:32:34.253
But if I say don't beat around the bush, they get it, I get it, and we get an outcome really quickly.
434
00:32:34.353 --> 00:32:39.198
And so the time factor and the ability to lean forward into what teamwork is is really important.
435
00:32:41.296 --> 00:32:58.228
What you also touched upon there was just creating these intentional moments of proper connection and communication again, because we have so many different comms methods inside everything we do, but we're lacking that human connection components into everything.
436
00:32:58.248 --> 00:33:04.032
You know, that's why, you know, I love, thanks for taking a sip of Nespresso there, but that's why I love working with Nespresso Professional, right?
437
00:33:04.052 --> 00:33:04.632
Because, you know,
438
00:33:05.269 --> 00:33:14.878
It's about creating more of those moments back together where we can come together, whether it's over a cuppa or anything else, and realign consistently.
439
00:33:15.318 --> 00:33:20.443
And I suppose how important is that for companies to, once they've gone through this with you,
440
00:33:20.963 --> 00:33:44.328
once they've identified these alignment codes like what's your recommendation post that is it is it that we you should be catching up every month to reconnect on all these alignment codes is about resetting them is it about sharing more around moments that you did align together or moments that we've got coming up that we can all strive for like what's the code after that yeah so so really importantly um
441
00:33:46.168 --> 00:33:50.230
The analogy I'll give you is when a leadership coach comes into the business, it's not their job to lead.
442
00:33:50.351 --> 00:33:52.612
It's to help the leaders be better leaders, basically.
443
00:33:53.272 --> 00:34:00.336
And what I do through my work, whether it be through creating teamwork and alignment codes or just my creative problem solving and brainstorming sort of sessions is...
444
00:34:01.377 --> 00:34:05.140
It's very important for me to help them build their own competency at being aligned.
445
00:34:05.220 --> 00:34:10.443
So I don't prescribe, right, in order to make this successful, here are the 10 things you need to do next.
446
00:34:11.104 --> 00:34:12.105
I ask the groups to do that.
447
00:34:12.565 --> 00:34:14.907
Because once they've got the codes, the first thing we do is test them.
448
00:34:15.507 --> 00:34:16.988
So think of this as a full-day workshop.
449
00:34:17.008 --> 00:34:18.409
The morning's been spent building these codes.
450
00:34:18.429 --> 00:34:19.570
The afternoon's scenarios.
451
00:34:19.890 --> 00:34:20.070
Right.
452
00:34:20.450 --> 00:34:23.212
Okay, what real issues do we have on our plates right now?
453
00:34:23.332 --> 00:34:25.374
Oh, well, you know, having a bit of a turnover problem or...
454
00:34:25.914 --> 00:34:28.376
And gee, that product we launched hasn't launched as well as we thought.
455
00:34:28.416 --> 00:34:34.100
Okay, so let's have the meeting here in the room and let's use the alignment codes to see they help us.
456
00:34:34.500 --> 00:34:41.485
What that then does, Cookie, is post the workshop session is that then people have felt and used the codes.
457
00:34:41.545 --> 00:34:43.567
They've been more confident to put them in place straight away.
458
00:34:44.047 --> 00:34:51.893
The worst thing that could happen is it becomes like another vision values thing where everyone loves the words on the day and they go on a poster and everyone just goes back to work.
459
00:34:53.213 --> 00:34:56.595
What this is about is behavior changing and it's about mindset shifting.
460
00:34:57.155 --> 00:35:07.459
And why I know this works really well and from the feedback I've had from the teams that we've done this with, is the accountability and responsibilities immediately picked up by the team.
461
00:35:07.939 --> 00:35:14.161
It's not the person who's booked the session, usually from the people in culture department or the C-suite has booked it.
462
00:35:14.701 --> 00:35:18.563
It's not for them to go, oh, we had that great session last week and now let's go ahead with these codes.
463
00:35:19.383 --> 00:35:23.326
The first test is if you're doing the session on a Friday, what's happening Monday?
464
00:35:23.726 --> 00:35:29.431
And we role play that out in scenario play with real issues because then people can actually see it in practice and put it to the test.
465
00:35:30.291 --> 00:35:34.855
And I've had groups who feel really good about an alignment code, catch up with them a year later.
466
00:35:34.875 --> 00:35:35.435
How are you going?
467
00:35:35.475 --> 00:35:40.219
Oh, actually, we switched our communication one because we found, you know, this is actually happening more than what we've decided on the day.
468
00:35:40.579 --> 00:35:41.160
Fantastic.
469
00:35:41.180 --> 00:35:41.600
Fantastic.
470
00:35:41.940 --> 00:35:43.301
That's exactly how it would work.
471
00:35:43.381 --> 00:35:47.242
It's not a locked in, you know, like, oh, we can never change this because that's agreement.
472
00:35:47.702 --> 00:35:50.884
Alignment is about we actually want to work better as a team.
473
00:35:50.904 --> 00:35:54.485
We're looking at leadership and teamwork in the future tense, not the past tense.
474
00:35:55.085 --> 00:35:57.186
And in the future tense, it's how do we want to work?
475
00:35:57.606 --> 00:36:00.587
And then whatever cadence people want to use that suits their culture.
476
00:36:00.607 --> 00:36:02.108
Do we address this quarterly?
477
00:36:02.128 --> 00:36:04.229
Do we put it into performance reviews, which some people have?
478
00:36:05.089 --> 00:36:06.310
Do we incentivise it?
479
00:36:06.370 --> 00:36:08.210
You know, are there ways that we kind of bring this to life?
480
00:36:08.230 --> 00:36:12.411
That's entirely a decision for each individual business based on what they're trying to achieve.
481
00:36:12.511 --> 00:36:20.654
But I think what I get great satisfaction of is I usually sort of book in like a three, six month check in after we do a workshop.
482
00:36:20.734 --> 00:36:23.854
And people just say, you know what, they're so simple.
483
00:36:25.155 --> 00:36:25.775
But we use them.
484
00:36:25.795 --> 00:36:26.675
It's like, thank you.
485
00:36:27.175 --> 00:36:27.615
Perfect.
486
00:36:28.256 --> 00:36:32.277
Because then they're useful and people use it and they try and build better alignment and get better results.
487
00:36:32.897 --> 00:36:33.037
Yeah.
488
00:36:35.492 --> 00:36:39.897
Can the team be successful in this if the company's not on board with it either?
489
00:36:40.157 --> 00:36:53.151
Like can teams, let's say it's the marketing team, can they be really successful in that team unit if the company and the rest of the organisation isn't in that same alignment cycle?
490
00:36:53.171 --> 00:36:53.271
Yeah.
491
00:36:53.835 --> 00:36:55.656
Yeah, the short answer is yes.
492
00:36:56.417 --> 00:36:57.658
I'm not saying that's easy to do.
493
00:36:57.678 --> 00:37:04.563
It usually depends on the stakeholders and the buy-in of the stakeholders in terms of understanding the process.
494
00:37:04.623 --> 00:37:09.026
So, you know, we don't start the process with, like, let's make our alignment codes.
495
00:37:09.046 --> 00:37:11.127
As I said, we start with let's look at high-performing teams.
496
00:37:11.147 --> 00:37:12.188
Let's look at what they do well.
497
00:37:12.568 --> 00:37:16.131
Let's unpick what alignment is and agreement isn't.
498
00:37:16.151 --> 00:37:17.411
Let's go through some examples.
499
00:37:17.452 --> 00:37:19.853
People generally feel a bit more comfort around knowing those.
500
00:37:20.514 --> 00:37:20.734
But...
501
00:37:21.334 --> 00:37:36.931
I've had plenty of examples and my background is media marketing, so a lot of my contacts are in that sort of industry where I've gone in and worked with a marketing team, for example, and they've bought in and they've put it in place, is to have then other teams from the business say, oh, look, can we do that as well for our team?
502
00:37:37.812 --> 00:37:42.036
And the reason why it's different per team is not to say that you're going to have...
503
00:37:42.677 --> 00:37:48.084
With mission and vision and values, they're usually company-wide, where you have them in a team.
504
00:37:48.144 --> 00:37:49.426
These are the behaviours, right?
505
00:37:49.446 --> 00:37:50.888
These are the things that people do every day.
506
00:37:50.908 --> 00:37:58.919
So the marketing team are going to have a much different remit on a day-to-day basis than the people in the factory who are manufacturing.
507
00:37:59.319 --> 00:37:59.820
Makes sense.
508
00:38:00.120 --> 00:38:02.022
So they can be similar for sure.
509
00:38:02.062 --> 00:38:03.103
They could even borrow some.
510
00:38:03.123 --> 00:38:05.686
Oh, we love what you said about communication, but don't beat around the bush.
511
00:38:05.866 --> 00:38:06.747
That applies to us too.
512
00:38:07.108 --> 00:38:07.869
Knock yourselves out.
513
00:38:08.169 --> 00:38:09.530
But it's got to work for that team.
514
00:38:09.971 --> 00:38:11.673
And the alignment starts with the ambition.
515
00:38:11.693 --> 00:38:14.276
And the ambition is what do we want to achieve as a team?
516
00:38:14.676 --> 00:38:16.118
How do we want to behave as a team?
517
00:38:16.138 --> 00:38:16.358
Yeah.
518
00:38:17.139 --> 00:38:18.119
what does that look like?
519
00:38:18.299 --> 00:38:20.961
And, you know, this is the last sporting analogy I'll use.
520
00:38:20.981 --> 00:38:29.608
I'm sorry if anyone's a non-sports person, but I think you'll get where I'm going here, is there's usually one team in every competition that's got a momentum story.
521
00:38:30.068 --> 00:38:32.650
You know, for AFL people, it's Hawthorne at the moment.
522
00:38:32.910 --> 00:38:34.452
It pains me to say, but it's Hawthorne.
523
00:38:34.892 --> 00:38:35.312
But...
524
00:38:36.713 --> 00:38:38.776
They look like they're just having fun out there, right?
525
00:38:39.456 --> 00:38:43.201
But they didn't just turn up one day and kick a ball and go, no, we're having fun.
526
00:38:43.561 --> 00:38:44.963
Oh, as a result of kicking that ball, we're having fun.
527
00:38:45.143 --> 00:38:48.266
They made a conscious choice about what they wanted to do.
528
00:38:48.927 --> 00:38:49.808
What's their ambition?
529
00:38:49.828 --> 00:38:53.011
Their ambition is to have fun and to play the game well, but to have fun.
530
00:38:53.592 --> 00:39:03.556
And when you can articulate whatever that is and think of whatever your favorite sporting code is, or maybe an organization you're in now where you've worked before, think about the moments where people are really enjoying it.
531
00:39:03.916 --> 00:39:07.897
It's because people have made a decision to align around a particular element.
532
00:39:07.917 --> 00:39:09.518
Now, it may not have been called that,
533
00:39:10.332 --> 00:39:16.914
So I'm calling it that, and I think more of the evidence is starting to support post-COVID the nature of remote work and misaligned teams.
534
00:39:16.975 --> 00:39:19.776
And we used to have these wonderful micro moments, right?
535
00:39:20.236 --> 00:39:21.156
Run into someone in the kitchen.
536
00:39:21.196 --> 00:39:22.036
Hey, how you doing, Cookie?
537
00:39:22.056 --> 00:39:22.797
Oh, what you doing on the weekend?
538
00:39:23.397 --> 00:39:24.277
How's your kids, et cetera?
539
00:39:25.498 --> 00:39:28.239
Those micro moments have gone missing because of remote work.
540
00:39:28.259 --> 00:39:30.620
They still exist in some places but largely gone missing.
541
00:39:31.060 --> 00:39:32.900
So you can't just go, oh, well, that's gone.
542
00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:35.041
You have to then go, how are we going to create that teamwork?
543
00:39:35.501 --> 00:39:38.602
And by creating that teamwork, you start with trying to go, how are we going to align?
544
00:39:38.643 --> 00:39:39.763
What's our ambition as a team?
545
00:39:41.673 --> 00:39:44.795
Wade, it's been absolutely amazing having you on Lessons from Leaders today.
546
00:39:45.515 --> 00:39:51.118
Like I said, everyone, if you want to check out Wade, we've got this fangdangle new platform that you can message Wade directly.
547
00:39:51.138 --> 00:39:56.841
You can even book in a couple with him as well to find out a little bit more about his keynotes, workshops, training, coaching.
548
00:39:57.301 --> 00:40:00.263
You find out a little bit more about him and more other details.
549
00:40:00.823 --> 00:40:03.805
The link is in the profile copy if you are watching on Kappa.tv.
550
00:40:03.885 --> 00:40:06.407
If not, just go to Kappa.tv and check out all our speakers.
551
00:40:07.047 --> 00:40:12.230
And, yeah, you can engage with Wade or reach out to us at Kappa and we can make that introduction as well.
552
00:40:13.090 --> 00:40:14.631
Mate, it's been absolutely brilliant today.
553
00:40:14.671 --> 00:40:18.013
If a leader could do just one thing tomorrow to improve alignment, what should it be?
554
00:40:19.254 --> 00:40:23.757
It should be to go to your team and say, what do we want to achieve today?
555
00:40:25.118 --> 00:40:29.299
Not make it tricky, not be a setup, not be a hurdle that's too hard to achieve.
556
00:40:29.859 --> 00:40:32.840
Start the day by saying, team, what do we wanna achieve today?
557
00:40:33.320 --> 00:40:37.101
And if someone says, we wanna sell three more things, it's like, no, what do we wanna achieve as a team today?
558
00:40:37.741 --> 00:40:40.462
Because if we can achieve that, then we will sell three more things.
559
00:40:41.022 --> 00:40:43.163
It's about saying, you know what we wanna do?
560
00:40:43.183 --> 00:40:44.183
We wanna get to five o'clock,
561
00:40:44.921 --> 00:40:46.582
and we've actually supported each other.
562
00:40:46.823 --> 00:40:49.845
Okay, cool, let's meet back at five, for five minutes and see if we've supported each other.
563
00:40:50.205 --> 00:40:56.410
It's these small, seemingly easy actions that I think aren't done often enough from a leader.
564
00:40:56.630 --> 00:40:59.973
And I've been in leadership roles, I understand how hard it is to find the time,
565
00:41:00.553 --> 00:41:11.281
But if you just did one thing off the back of today and tomorrow or Monday, you started the day with an ambition, what do we want to achieve today, and checked it at the end, you watch the difference it makes in the team.
566
00:41:11.542 --> 00:41:13.403
Just watch the next day and the day after.
567
00:41:13.903 --> 00:41:17.506
It's a great simple hack to articulate what's often unspoken.
568
00:41:17.966 --> 00:41:21.929
And as I said earlier, Cookie, I really don't think leaders can communicate the ambition enough.
569
00:41:22.670 --> 00:41:22.810
Hmm.
570
00:41:23.612 --> 00:41:26.678
Wade, thank you so much for being a part of Lessons from Leaders today.
571
00:41:26.799 --> 00:41:28.081
Really do appreciate your time, mate.
572
00:41:28.261 --> 00:41:28.582
Thank you.
573
00:41:28.722 --> 00:41:29.023
Pleasure.
574
00:41:29.364 --> 00:41:29.624
Thank you.
575
00:41:29.644 --> 00:41:30.747
And thanks for disperse that as well.
576
00:41:31.810 --> 00:41:33.371
Thank you everyone for joining today.
577
00:41:34.052 --> 00:41:35.773
That is another show of Lessons from Leaders.
578
00:41:35.813 --> 00:41:37.114
We do a mixture of live events.
579
00:41:37.154 --> 00:41:38.795
We do a mixture of virtual shows.
580
00:41:38.915 --> 00:41:49.062
We've got some incredible content from all different aspects of leadership that you can check out in the Nespresso Professional Lessons from Leaders playlist that we do have on Kappa.TV.
581
00:41:49.102 --> 00:41:54.686
We'll share a link with that after the show in the replay when we send it out later on this afternoon.
582
00:41:55.327 --> 00:41:58.009
It's been absolutely amazing to hold space with you today.
583
00:41:58.469 --> 00:41:58.869
Go on.
584
00:41:59.909 --> 00:42:04.153
and encourage you to try and seek that alignment within your business.
585
00:42:04.514 --> 00:42:08.438
And once again, remember, Wade is there to help you navigate that journey as well.
586
00:42:08.718 --> 00:42:09.619
Well, thank you, everyone.
587
00:42:09.639 --> 00:42:12.161
And on behalf of Nespresso Professional and myself, that is it.
588
00:42:12.382 --> 00:42:14.404
Enjoy your next cuppa and we'll chat to you soon.
589
00:42:14.424 --> 00:42:15.184
See you later, everyone.
590
00:42:15.265 --> 00:42:15.465
Bye.