We Not Me: Recent Episodes

Dan Hammond & Pia Lee

Exploring how humans connect and get stuff done together, with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee from Squadify.

We need groups of humans to help navigate the world of opportunities and challenges, but we don't always work together effectively. This podcast tackles questions such as "What makes a rockstar team?" "How can we work from anywhere?" "What part does connection play in today's world?"

You'll also hear the thoughts and views of those who are running and leading teams across the world.

Disagreements can quickly escalate into a fight for survival, triggering a limbic response in the brain that can lead to destructive behaviour. But none of us has privileged access to the truth. We all have different perspectives, and so by engaging with the unpredictability and uncertainty of our environment, we can get to a more precise, accurate, and nuanced understanding.

To nurture a culture of healthy disagreement, we need to remember we don't know everything, and that assumptions can be challenged. This takes curiosity and a willingness to change our position and the position of others.

In this second and final part of Dan and Pia’s conversation with Matthew Bellringer, our guest explores ways we can start to disagree agreeably, by being clear about what we don't know, situating our perspective, and sharing why we think a certain way.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Considering other perspectives is essential for positive disagreement and progress, and bringing us further into the group, rather than risking the feeling of banishment.
Making assumptions harms our attention to detail and critical thinking. Truth is often complex, but we can tend to prioritise being right and looking for quick fixes.
If we feel threatened by a differing viewpoint, we can lose our ability to reason at a higher level, and can be compelled to make our point at all costs. We need to find ways to detach from emotions and try to understand our own responses.
Healthy debate should recognise the middle ground, and be able to see both sides. It’s a position of strength, not weakness.

Links

Connect with Matthew via LinkedIn
Delightful Dissent – Matthew’s podcast
Curious Being
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There are plenty of leadership “gurus” who can simplify complex topics. But how often do we consider the accuracy of their statements? Lots has been written about the purpose movement, but there’s another approach: embracing the absurdity of our current situations, and holding up a mirror to them.

Irony in teams can give us an interesting perspective on performance and management, and can be a vital bonding agent within teams. Dr Richard Claydon has done extensive research on organisational irony and its role in leadership. He teaches leadership programmes and has developed facilitation techniques to help people learn and develop leadership skills in a practical way. And he challenges some of the received wisdom of “gurus” many hold in high esteem.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Not all of us can find purpose in our work, so we seek it elsewhere. And trying too hard to find purpose in your work – and not following your own intrinsic purpose – can lead to difficulties.
Richard challenges some of the claims and statements Simon Sinek makes – from an academic’s point of view – but the fact that it resonates with so many people can’t be ignored.
When faced with absurdity – or with things being taken too seriously – the key is to face it with a wry smile. Just don’t take it to the point of sarcasm.
There can be comfort in finding people who share your ironic take on things.
Leadership can be dark – it’s not always plain sailing.

Links

Connect with Richard via LinkedIn
Are you a Sinek cynic? – Richard’s LinkedIn post
How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek’s “Golden Circle” TED talk
EQ Lab
The Human Factor
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There comes a time when a startup moves to a scale-up, where small ideas take off and before you know it, you’ve got a hit on your hands. But with the highs come the responsibilities of leadership. In this episode, Dan shares his experience creating a successful music festival in his hometown of Ilkley, and offers valuable insights on how to make it work.

Defining your values as you grow

Dan and Pia discuss how Ilkley Live’s leadership is evolving, just as it does with any startup. The process looks like this:

Determine your purpose and values
Communicate them clearly to your team and stakeholders
Be open to feedback and make adjustments
Give people autonomy to take ownership
Stay invested in your values, even as the project grows

Losing sight of your core values puts the support of your team at risk, so while they don’t necessarily need to be on paper, they do need to be held.

Links

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W\hen you’re managing a crises, you need well-structured governance and communication framework in place. This will ensure all stakeholders are on the same page and working towards the same goal. Empowering team members with knowledge and delegating tasks is key. But we also need to be willing to take charge and get things sorted out when resources or support are needed.

This week’s guest is Bernadette Welch, a retired public servant with a long career in Australia and Fiji. She coordinated Fiji's initial COVID response and organised the largest international meeting the country had ever hosted. She’s been the CEO 6,000-person organisation, and Permanent Secretary for Civil Service and Health in Fiji.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Well-structured governance and communications frameworks are essential when dealing with complex projects.
When you’re clear about your purpose and setup a climate of safety, people find it easier to work together because they can see and identify the boundaries.
“The discipline of the process creates freedom of choice.” – Solid structures allow for autonomy within individuals.
While effective leaders take responsibility, it’s important to strike a balance between protecting your team from distractions, and removing some of their potential agency.

Links

Connect with Burnadette via LinkedIn
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Building a diverse and inclusive culture is a complex challenge, especially in a geographically and culturally diverse environment. It takes a common set of values and behaviours to be established across the organisation, as well as a focus on communication, respect, and empowerment.

But while diversity is invaluable, it doesn’t create equity and inclusion. Creating equity means addressing systemic issues and biases that may affect certain groups more than others. And support for people from less advantaged backgrounds needs to be in place to allow them to thrive.

Sahera Sumar is a leadership consultant who specialises in inclusive leadership and building inclusive cultures. She has worked in both the corporate and non-profit sectors and has a passion for understanding and unpacking leadership in different cultural contexts. She currently works with a steel company located in 10 different countries within Africa, where she focuses on diversity and inclusion and strengthening the leadership capacity of the organisation.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Rather than try and understand the myriad and minute differences between various cultures, stick to a simple code of conduct. “Instead of many rules, have one behaviour.”
Central to working with people from different backgrounds is appreciation and acceptance. These are two of Sahera’s five As.
Starting with shared values and behaviours can lead to a long-standing and collaborative team environment.

Links

Connect with Sahera via LinkedIn
Diversity in Teams – We Not Me episode 11
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Creating a community around a shared interest or passion can lead to unexpected outcomes. Matt Trinetti followed the energy of an idea and provided a space for like-minded people to come together and form a community.

The London Writers’ Salon has grown and evolved over time, with daily writing sessions and weekly interviews with writers, and is now a profitable business formed from a simple idea at the start of the UK’s first covid lockdown.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Follow the energy in the conversations you’re having, as more often than not, they’ll lead you to more fruitful decisions.
Collaborating virtually or in person gives us a sense of moving forwards. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to hold space.
Matt’s inclusive vision exposes the falsehood that collaboration can and must only happen in the same physical space.

Links

Connect with Matt via LinkedIn
Give, Live, Explore – Matt’s travel blog
Writer’s Hour
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
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AI has the potential to revolutionise collaboration and teamwork, but it has limitations and potential biases we need to watch out for.

Benjamin Dehant is a specialist with experience using AI in collaboration and teamwork settings. He believes that in the future, every team member will have their own AI assistant that will help us work faster and more efficiently. But with those tools come limitations, and he raises the question of whether we want AI to do everything for us – and make decisions in our best interests – or if we want to maintain the value of doing things ourselves.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Governments may not be adequately prepared for the impact of AI. We need proactive governance and preparedness.
We need to make a conscious choice when implementing AI, taking into consideration the potential benefits and risks, and regulating it in a way that benefits society as a whole.
A general AI that knows everything about an organisation can provide valuable insights and data, joining dots together quicker than humans can. This could fuel more efficient and effective collaboration within teams.
We must remain in charge of desired outcomes and not delegate responsibility to AI, especially given the potential for inaccuracies in AI-generated data.
AI is a useful tool for enhancing human decision-making, but we need to remain vigilant and responsible in the process.

Links

Connect with Benjamin via LinkedIn
Teams in the metaverse – We Not Me episode 16, with Ian Smith
Artificial general intelligence (AGI)
ChatGPT – AI text generation
Midjourney – AI image generation
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Removing hierarchy and implementing self-management in an organisation can be challenging, but it can also lead to positive changes and benefits for businesses willing to take the leap.

Agency founder Tom McLaughlin felt he needed to let go of some control and delegate more as the company grew. He wanted to remove the hierarchy and power dynamics in the organisation, so worked with an expert in the field of self-management, and set about restructuring his company.

Tom’s book recommendations

Maverick
The Go Giver
Song of Significance

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Leaders who put a shell around themselves and are not open to feedback may be immune from criticism, but being open to feedback invites scrutiny and improves the system.
The ultimate accountability for the business falls on the person responsible for the last penny in the bank, and it takes a team of trustworthy individuals to manage tough decisions together.
There's a difference between a role and hierarchical power, so instead of shying away from leadership roles, team members can take ownership and accountability for decisions while still valuing everyone's input.
Team members have the potential to see career opportunities differently in a flat organisation and value the freedom to explore and challenge themselves.

Links

The Push-up Challenge
Find an emergency hotline where you are
Connect with Tom via LinkedIn
SEO Travel
Psychological safety in teams – episode 3 of We Not Me, with Dr Jessica Tonissen
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Embracing neurodiversity can bring valuable perspectives, innovation, and organisational endurance to teams. By recognising the strengths that come with neurodivergent conditions, individuals and teams can benefit from a plurality of perspectives and explore new ways of thinking and working together.

Matthew Bellringer is a consultant, practitioner, speaker, and author who focuses on systems engineering, human systems, and ecosystems. They have a background in tech engineering but have always been interested in people more than technology. Matthew has ADHD and an adulthood autism diagnoses, and is a strong advocate for neurodiversity within teams. They are the chair of Neurodiverse IT, a group for neurodivergent IT professionals, and run their own community called Curious Being.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Team leaders must consider not only the individual benefits of diversity and inclusion, but also the significance of having diverse views within organisations. Organisations need to be adaptable and able to change and move with the times, rather than being brittle.
Time constraints can prevent meaningful conversations around neurodivergence from happening. By giving ourselves more time and space, more innovative ideas can be co-created. But in order to achieve this, we need to let go of our egos and be open to different viewpoints.
We can build a new team view from diverse perspectives in order to “go our own way together”. It's not just about having different opinions all the time; it's about using these perspectives to come to a better path as a team.
There may be those who, when under pressure, feel that the last thing they need is a “difficult person” coming up with alternative viewpoints. But those voices must be heard and engaged with.
We can also take the opportunity, and the time, to delve deeper into the assumptions underlying viewpoints, as it’s often at this level where we can resolve issues.

Links

Connect with Matthew via LinkedIn
Delightful Dissent – Matthew’s podcast
Curious Being
Neurodiverse IT
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Teams need to prioritise creating and maintaining clarity, especially during times of disruption and uncertainty. While purpose and shared goals have held steady in Squadify’s latest Team Tracker data, the importance and presence of more granular aspects like a clear plan and measures of success have dropped, creating a significant clarity gap.

Juliet Hammond joins Dan and Pia to discuss how teams need to focus on defining short-term priorities, experimenting, and reflecting in order to stay aligned and effective in a rapidly changing environment.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Teams can create a holistic map for their outcomes, by setting a clear purpose and strategy, along with interdependency and prioritisation choices.
By creating a shared purpose, organisation can bring their teams together and avoid burdening senior leaders with the responsibility of coordinating everything.
Most teams are merely groups of people, rather than coordinated units.
Flexibility is important when setting goals, and while clarity is key, goals should be held lightly and be subject to change while still ensuring that everyone knows what they’re working towards.
Being overwhelmed by ambiguity and finding it difficult to land on a goal is a natural human reaction. But it's important to seek clarity by focusing on what is undeniable and to make micro adjustments to avoid sailing down the wrong route for too long.

Links

Connect with Juliet via LinkedIn
VUCA: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
Locke's Goal-Setting Theory
Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey
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In times of crisis, community collaboration can be a powerful force for relief efforts.

Gaz Breen's coordinated efforts during the 2022 Burringbar floods demonstrated the importance of identifying our strengths and assets to contribute to a larger effort. Pia witnessed the recovery efforts that Gaz organised, and in their conversation, they discussed the significance of being an asset rather than a liability when facing difficult situations.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

In a disaster, every team member's contribution is essential. By recognising and utilising individual strengths, the team can work together more effectively to achieve their goals.
It's essential to ruthlessly exclude anything that doesn't help, and prioritise effectively. By doing this, individual strengths can be recognised and utilised, allowing the team to work together more effectively towards.
All team members have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to match their own skills to the wider needs of the team.
If your higher intent is clear, what some might call disobedience, others would call innovation.
Diverse teams need integration and synergy, not simply combining different people together.

Links

‘Next level destruction’: NSW residents detail the moments floods devastated their homes
Arthur Schopenhauer quote
Will it Make the Boat Go Faster? Olympic-Winning Strategies for Everyday Success, by Harriet Beveridge and Ben Hunt-Davis
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With the challenges of hybrid working and resource constraints, team leaders need to create a shared vision and a set of meaningful goals. By putting the team at the centre and leveraging the interdependencies between members, organisations can achieve greater improvements in performance and outcomes.

In this first episode of the season 6, Dan and Pia look back on highlights from season 5, and what these conversations can teach us about collaboration.

Episodes to check out from season 5

Leading teams of volunteers – episode 51 with Jim Goddard
Purpose, people and football – episode 60 with Richard Giles
Building communities: playgrounds for adults – episode 56 with Robin Hutchinson
Can the four-day work week really work? – episode 50 with Joe Ryle
What is the data telling us about psychological safety? – episode 57 with Juliet Hammond
Why “culture fit” may not be what you want – episode 55 with Marsha Ramroop
A boarding school on the water – episode 54 with Jens Lee
Building a thriving culture from the outside in – episode 58 with Marcus Swalwell and Tom Wedge
A team’s guide to Design Thinking – episode 59 with Adam Billing

When Dr Beki Hooper began to study rhesus macaques, she found less-than-flattering similarities between monkey behaviour and human team structure.

In this fascinating discussion, Dr Beki takes us into the habitat of the rhesus macaque, giving us a first-hand glimpse into a hierarchy based on gender and tenure.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Many of us have experience in organisations that feel like they were governed in the same way as groups of macaques.
As humans, we should be able to break through these patriarchal, seniority-based structures.
Humans have behaviour equivalent to monkey grooming and preening.
Some of our relationships are built on who can advance us within our social structure.
Additionally, the bonds we build through grooming allow us to gain more information which we can use to advance our social standing, and to keep us safe.

Links

Follow Beki on Google Scholar
Follow @bekihooper on Twitter
Melissa Pavez-Fox on Google Scholar
Social learning in great tits - Lucy Aplin’s research
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For mountain guide Tania Noakes, leadership isn’t about giving commands, but is about collaborating.

Tania is an adventurer and climber who works with teams to help them tackle some of nature’s biggest challenges. As a group guide, Tania has had to be something of a chameleon, adapting herself to what the team dynamic needs to reach their goal safely.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

A good leader adapts to the team, rather than expecting the team to adapt to them.
Tough times call for clear communication.
If you’re doing something, explain what you’re doing to your team.
Respect of fellow human beings is non-negotiable.

Links

Classic Climbs – Tania’s website
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We all believe diversity, equity and inclusion to be important, but bridging the gap between the intent and the positive outcomes it brings is no easy task. For Marsha Ramroop, that bridge is cultural intelligence, and she joins Pia and Dan to pose vital questions about inclusion that have surprising answers.

After a career in broadcasting spanning 30 years, Marsha discovered the notion of cultural intelligence, and founded a consultancy and worked as Head of Inclusion at RIBA, so she could influence the creation of inclusive spaces.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

“When all you've known is privilege, equality can look like oppression,”
Being in an out group can feel like a constant battle to change the majority mindset, but it’s the majority that needs to make the effort.
Exclusion isn’t only about skin colour, sexuality, or physical disability – it can be about finding differences in the way we think.

Links

Connect with Marsha on LinkedIn
Unheard Voice Consultancy
Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, by Timothy Wilson
School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform it, by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker
Cultural Intelligence Center
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School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It

What happens when you grow a company from the ground up, and are then asked to leave? For entrepreneur Bart Foster, it meant reassessing his identity, and ultimately redefining himself.

After years spent as an intrapreneur within the corporate world, Bart founded his own health and wellness company and became an entrepreneur. Now he leads a company that helps teams think differently, get out of their comfort zones and into nature.

Key takeaways

Pay attention to the 70% of the bell curve in conversations.
We can make an intentional choice to pick the place we have for our conversations. It doesn’t always have to be in a meeting room.
What feels like a failure might just be a sign of us stretching our comfort zones.
Discomfort can be a good thing to seek.
The quality of the question drives the quality of the conversation.

Links

Connect with Bart on LinkedIn
Business Outside – Bart’s company
BusinessOutside: Discover Your Path Forward - Bart’s book
The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self, by Michael Easter
The Regret Minimisation framework: how Jeff Bezos made decisions
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The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self

Psychological safety is made up of a number of tiny interactions. Whether they be Slack messages, meetings, or emails, these forms of communication – and their responses – determine how likely someone is to speak up and share their ideas.

Stephan Wiedner is a psychological safety trainer, CEO, and volunteer firefighter. Stephan trains coaches to help create spaces where people feel free to speak up, with the confidence to know they’ll be heard.

Takeaways from Dan ad Pia

Attunement is about making sure everyone is on the right mental frequency, and not just assuming you’re on the “correct” setting and everyone else needs to adjust.
Focus on those micro moments of communication. Because without taking care of those micro interactions, problems can occur in the macro.

Links

Connect with Stephan on LinkedIn
The Fearless Organization – Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by AC Edmondson
Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smart, by Liz Wiseman

For the first time in over a thousand days of Squadify and forty episodes of the podcast, Dan and Pia are in the same room, and are joined by Dan’s wife Juliet, to discuss findings from a recent analysis on Squadify data.

Squadify works by asking team members to fill in a survey at the start and end of a particular period. Participants rate the importance of a series of conditions for team success, and then later return to record the presence of those conditions.

Key findings

Teamwork is a more important condition for hybrid teams than it is for those that work face-to-face.
Hybrid teams tend to be more task and transaction focused.
Not being together is allowing us to become more easily distracted.
Hybrid team communication can sometimes lead to fear of missing out.

What hybrid teams should focus on

Creating psychological safety
Using the right technology to enable better communication and avoid distraction
Keeping communication clear, so that everyone shares the same understanding

Links

Connect with Juliet on LinkedIn
Marco Polo video chat app
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Effective dialogue is the one thing getting in the way of senior teams. Listening is a fundamental part of team communication, and it begins with curiosity. Without it, leadership can be a lonely pursuit with less diversity of thought.

Before heading up design and research at LIW, Andy Chevis was an HR director and a salesperson, and has taken his curiosity in how we communicate effectively through his career. In this episode, he shares some of the common – and very human – pitfalls we all fall prey to, and how we can bridge those gaps to hold space for fresh ideas.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Curiosity has a place at all levels in the System Team Self model.
Curiosity starts with us.
Ask yourself “what kind of person do you want to be?”

Links

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn
Empathic Listening: The Highest Form of Listening
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Community policing runs on trust, no matter the location. That trust flows both ways, and can have its basis in something as simple as a common interest.

New Jersey police officer Adam Verducci and his squad are so well-connected that he knows when a situation is in progress just from the sound of a fellow officer’s voice on the radio. In his conversation with Dan and Pia, Adam walks us through a day in the life of a US police officer serving a relatively small town, where trust and connection come together to keep people safe.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Keeping a cool head can help keep a volatile situation from escalating.
The uniform denotes the job, but doesn’t give the wearer power.

Links

The Rest is Politics
Battleground: Ukraine
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Leadership is equal parts head, heart, and guts. Joining Dan and Pia to look back on an inspirational third season of We Not Me is CEO of LIW, Dan Meek.

Episodes highlighted

Breaking out of the box – neurodiversity and connection, with Ross Fraser
The brain science of teams, with Sue Langley
Teams at the frontline of medicine, with Andy Bocock
Connecting to heal, with James & Kristy Thomas
Teams in disaster relief, with Janet and Reid Boswell
Bringing our baggage to teams, with Mark Steadman
Generative leadership in teams, with Kathleen Curran
Coaching challenging teams, with Jackie Weaver
Leadership for healthy teams, with Stephen Hunt
Happiness in teams, with Matt Phelan

Links

Head, Heart and Guts: How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders, by David L Dotlich et al
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Undiagnosed autism can feel like a constant struggle to understand, and to be understood. For autism campaigner Ross Fraser, this led to him hiding away for decades to avoid continuing to feel like he was doing or saying the wrong thing, without ever being given rules that made sense.

The autism community in the UK includes approximately five million people, and yet in Ross’s experience, most people who live with autism say they’ve felt alone most of their lives.

In his conversation with Dan and Pia, Ross breaks down some of the key differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent minds, and talks openly and emotionally about the impact loneliness and isolation has, which is what fuels his advoacy.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Are we getting worse at connecting together as humans? If so, part of the work of connection means treating each-other as individuals.
Is anyone really “fully” neurotypical?
Any difference needs to be embraced with compassion, care, and curiosity.
If you can be compassionate, you can work with any human.

Links

“I wouldn’t change it for the world” Scot who met wife after breaking back in freak accident is “grateful for injury every day”
The Best of Enemies (2019)
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Human beings are designed to connect. Lockdowns showed us how much we valued connection, but also how vital our habits were to helping us stabilise. But while habits include routine behaviours, they can also include thought patterns that lead to judgements of others.

Sue Langley equips people to be the best they can be. She does this by applying positive psychology, emotional intelligence, and neuroscience. In her conversation with Dan and Pia, she explores how principles applied of positive psychology can help teams get stuff done together.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Put your brain health first.
Build habits
Pay attention and attune to the things that will keep you on your game.

Links

Langley Group
Positive psychology
fusiform gyrus
In Conversation with Professor Marco Iacoboni
Generative leadership in teams – We Not Me episode 30
Self-determination theory
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When Becky Malby discovered that her local water provider was dumping raw sewage into the nearby river on a regular basis, she was outraged. So she helped setup a citizen science project to test the local water and found that it was full of dangerous pollutants, contradicting the study the water company had conducted which labeled the river water safe enough to drink.

Becky helps GPs within the NHS understand where the gaps are between those needing primary care and those who are making and getting appointments. As well as discussing bathing water status, Becky also outlines some of the systemic issues with primary care in the UK, and how she’s helping practises address them.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

If you approach a complex problem with a simple answer, you might end up worsening the situation.
Humans need to connect differently to work against decisions made for the pursuit of shareholder profits.
Adaptive challenges require adaptive leadership.

Links

Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, by C Otto Scharmer
Diatoms
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, by Ronald Heifetz
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The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

Accident and emergency nursing involves managing and working with ever-shifting teams, with people joining temporarily who bring skill and knowledge, but aren’t familiar with the team’s inner workings. This is one of the challenges facing NHS nurse Andy Boocock.

Andy describes working, not only with his team in A&E, but when teams dovetail in emergency situations.

This conversation involves a discussion on and examples of gallows humour, involving stories of a medical nature.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

We can choose to help people or “mop around them”.
Fear of embarrassment should not stand in the way of us helping someone in need.

Links

“My only regret is running out of space” - how tattoos transformed one Very Inky Dude into a celebrity fashion star
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Where do you go to half a fast-tracked career and make some quick cash? For Stephen Hunt, the answer turned out to be Internet advertising. But it was only ever a limited-time plan to create enough space for him to explore his real passion: music.

Steve is the co-founder and COO of Music Health, a company improving mental health through music. Inspired by a 2014 film about music’s impact on people with dementia, Steve and his business partner Nick began work on an app that would do for dementia what Headspace and Calm have done for meditation.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Rather than list a set of values on the wall, what are the practices that will lead to behaviours?
When trying to work against the failure statistics of startups, it makes sense to prioritise mental and physical health.
Those short-term health choices can lead to longer-term positive consequences.

Links

Alive Inside (2014)
AIM iHub – Australia’s first music incubator
Vera – the music companion for people living with dementia
Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
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We all carry our psychological histories on our backs, and the weight of those feelings can affect how we work within a team. We Not Me producer Mark Steadman began to understand this as he learned more about how his neurodivergence contributed to team dynamics.

Mark is a podcast producer, consultant, and coach. He works with individuals and small teams to help them access their potential to create impact, using their voice. He started his own community for changemakers and thought-leaders last year, fuelled by his love of connecting with other humans.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

We can examine our origin stories to understand how they inform our present.
We can try to see ourselves as evolving, rather than set in place.
Rather than wait for the messy parts of life to be over, be can be compassionate towards ourselves and be OK in notbeing OK right now.

Links

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
Origin, Mark’s consultancy
Podcode, Mark’s podcasting blog and community
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There is a void of leadership following the pandemic, and everything feels uncertain. That uncertainty – precarity – is an area of study for generative leadership specialist Kathleen Curran.

Kathleen defines herself as an “explorer with purpose”, and helps people not only bring their whole self to work, but fully inhabit it. She is a co-author on a book about precarity, with her contribution focusing on the word of certainty and normalcy that opened in the wake of the global pandemic.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

The void in leadership opened by the pandemic is still in place today.
It’s sometimes necessary for those without traditional leadership positions to step up, to do the work that needs to be done.
There is a disconnect in the communication of our need for connection, between anecdotal conversations and data collected on teams.

Links

Precarity
Find Kathleen on LinkedIn
Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative
Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, by Samantha Montano
VUCA: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, by Rita McGrath
Enough Leadership. Time for Communityship, a blog post by Henry Mintzberg
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If you look after your employees, your customers will be happier, and you’ll make more money. That’s the hypothesis Matt Phelan took, inspired by Richard Branson. But with that hypothesis in place, where’s the data to back it up?

Before founding the Happiness Index, Matt began working with animals, then studied marketing, starting his own digital marketing agency just before the 2008 financial crash. As someone used to tracking the efficacy of digital campaigns, he began to explore how the assumption that happier employees meant more money could be proven.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

Relationships are the primary driver of happiness.
Humans have set points – almost predetermined levels of happiness we return to, after a peak or a trough.
Bring a happy person into an unhappy team, and that person’s happiness will dip.
To build better relationships, we need to express our emotions.

Links

The Happiness Index
How William Kahn revolutionized employee engagement at work
Freedom to be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness – Matt’s book
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Freedom To Be Happy: The Business Case For Happiness (Happiness and Humans)

Husband-and-wife team Kristy and James Thomas have both suffered profound and untimely loss in their lives. But from that grief, they have been able to create a charity that impacts the lives of children all around Australia who are dealing with grief.

The Thomas’ charity Feel the Magic brings children to Disneyland and puts on regular Camp Magic events, providing much-needed respite from and support throughout the grieving process. Their camps focus on four core values of empathy, empowerment, growth, and connection – this last value being something they discovered as they witnessed how mentors not only changed kids’ lives, but vice versa.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

“Giving” means more than giving money. It may mean giving a piece of yourself, your time, and your energy.
The grieving experience is unique, making individual support all the more important.
Grief is not a team sport.

Links

Feel the Magic
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Jackie Weaver became an Internet sensation in February 2022, when her handling of a parish council meeting – and the councillors’ reaction to it – went viral. But Jackie has decades of experience coaching teams of all sizes, which she shares with Dan and Pia.

Takeaways

It’s easy to overlook the amount of ground we share, when in disagreement.
Sometimes it takes a third party to help us see the common ground.
Experience can bring with it a degree of calmness when approaching difficult situations.
Jackie used her Internet fame as a platform to raise awareness of the work she and people like her do, across the country.

Links

The infamous Handforth Parish Council meeting
You Do Have the Authority Here! – Jackie’s book
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Expertise can allow us to flourish in our comfort zones, but when thrust into a new environment, we have to rely on others. For Janet and Reid Boswell, what started as a parish-wide mission to bring aid to post-earthquake Haiti ended up as a mini industry, delivering medicine and dental care to the people of Haiti.

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

The collaborative mindset was transferred from Haiti back home.
Reid had to let go of his need to control, in order to work within a team.
We need to journey outside of our comfort zones to discover what’s possible.

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Dan and Pia kick off season three with a look back at the previous season, with help from special guest Lucy Hovanec. The team discuss

Episode 22 – Data from the heart, with Simon Shephard
Episode 21 – Individual identity in teams, with James Prior
Episode 24 – The Great Retention, with Suni Lobo
Episode 18 – Building the right team culture, with Kevin Brownsey
Episode 14 – The jazz ensemble, with Craig Scott
Episode 20 – Critical teams, with Martin Bromely
Episode 23 – Community teams, with David Burns
Episode 16 – Teams in the Metaverse, with Ian Smith
Episode 17 – Teams in adversity, with Jim Molan
Episode 19 – From the frontline of firefighting, with Sandy Quirinale
Episode 15 – Mental health in teams, with Chuck Anderson

For Chief HR Officer Suni Lobo, psychological safety is key to teams feeling like they belong. It was put to the test during the pandemic, but her company’s ability to create a space where people felt able to do their best work, produced incredible results.

In her conversation with Dan and Pia, Suni discusses employee compensation and the minimal role it plays in job satisfaction when offset against a sense of belonging. Using concrete examples from Silicon Valley, Suni shares how organisations can build trust within teams, and underscores the importance of teammates having each-others’ backs.

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If one member of a team isn’t working towards the common goal, they won’t succeed. Social entrepreneur David Burns sees that in the work he does to help strengthen teams, viewed through the prism of sport.

In his conversation with Pia and Dan, David highlights the importance of respecting and honouring people’s cultural values within teams, even at the risk of his work being misinterpreted r met with resistance.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

A challenge can be flipped from something you have to do, to something you get to do.
Seek first to understand.

Links

Collective Leisure
David’s appearance on Australia’s Current Affair
SBS News’ coverage of David’s initiative to train and employ refugees as swimming teachers

How do we create moments to reset? Just like a Formula 1 car pulling into a pitstop, slowing down and stopping completely in order to win a race – how can we create moments of mental and emotional rest during our working days?

Simon Shepard is the CEO of Optima-life. He helps teams understand themselves better as individuals, and the role their physiologies play in their performance. Simon shares his frameworks for helping people understand the messages their body might be sending them. One of them includes a way to measure the stresses of the last week, by scoring events on a scale of difficulty and multiplying them by the emotional impact they had.

Dan and Pia’s takeaways

A heart rate variability monitor may help you understand what affects your sleep patterns.
Taking a pitstop is more effective than trying to push on through burnout.

Links

The Battle For Balance – Simon’s book
Critical Teams, with Martin Bromiley – episode 20 of We Not Me

Amid various models of team management, it’s important to remember that each of us is an individual player. We bring our own unique perspectives to our teams, and that sense of personal identity can bring tension when offset against the goal of the team.

James Prior, Global Head of Leadership Development at Gilead Pharmaceuticals, joins Dan and Pia to explore the symbiotic relationship between the individual and the team.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

If we’re open to diversity, we can build a richer understanding of how humans work.
Ambiguity needs to be addressed if it’s being ignored in pursuit of certainty.

Links

How to Be a Liberal: The Story of Liberalism and the Fight for Its Life, by Ian Dunt

How To Be A Liberal: The Story of Freedom and the Fight for its Survival

Pia and Dan are joined by Martin Bromiley OBE, airline captain, charity trustee, and public speaker whose story of loss has fuelled much of the work he does today.

In 2005, Martin’s wife Elaine was admitted to hospital following an emergency that occurred while she was under anaesthetic. During the investigation into her death, Martin identified that Elaine’s death was due to failures in the way the surgical staff operated as a cohesive team.

Now, using his experience within aviation, he works with organisations to help teams get things right in critical situations.

Links

United Airlines Flight 173
The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Program to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence, and Happiness, by Professor Steve Peters
Martin’s story from the New Statesman

Takeaways from Pia and Dan

If your team can’t communicate across a hierarchy, you risk fragmentation.
If you can anticipate that there will be challenges, you can help calm your inner chimp.
Asking open questions help you to learn, not just those junior to you.

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Program to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence, and Happine ss

Pia and Dan are joined by former corporate worker and now voluntary firefighter Sandy Quirinale.

After her second son became interested in the fire service as a teenager, Sandy decided to sign up. She’s currently the only active female firefighter at her rural New Jersey station, and so brings her insight into diversity and teamwork within this highest-of-pressure situations.

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Diversity allows for us to pick the right person for the job within a team.
That in turn helps people feel less like they need to hold on to a specific task.
Improvising and thinking outside of the box isn’t appropriate in every situation, and for every team. There is benefit to sticking with tried-and-tested methodologies.

Links

We Not Me episode 17: Teams in adversity, with guest Jim Molan

Dan and Pia explore creating safe cultures for people to thrive, with consultant Kevin Brownsey.

Kevin is the CEO of Red Pill Consulting, a company that tries to help organisations change their culture. While some organisations strive for a “winning culture”, Kevin defines culture as the “beliefs that underpin the behaviours that drive the outcomes, not the outcomes themselves.”

Takeaways from Dan and Pia

Think about how we set the tone as team members or leaders.
Are you standing by and letting things slip?
“We’re not innately evil, but we do take shortcuts”.
Don’t shy away from discussing questions of culture.
This applies to family as well as work.
Be prepared to make transformations yourself.
Cultural change looks simple, but takes courage.

Jim Molan spent 40 years in the army from the age of 17. Since retiring from the army in 2008 as a Major General, he has written a book about his time in Iraq, co-authored policy on border-control, and consulted internationally. Jim is now a Senator for the Liberal Party in Australia.

When talking with Dan and Pia about how teams work together, Jim makes the observation that within the military, teams are formed and their work is rehearsed. He sets out his view on leadership within teams, and the importance of decision-making coupled with the ability to take criticism.

Links

Running the War in Iraq, by Jim Molan

What is the future of remote team collaboration? Do we continue with Zoom meetings and the risk of fatigue they can bring, or is there a new approach we can take?

Dan and Pia explore meetings in the metaverse, with the help of freelance technologist Ian Smith. They discuss virtual avatars, getting together in a 3D space, and examine where it’s appropriate to meet in a space where everyone looks like they’re in The Incredibles, and when it’s not.

Links

Horizon Workrooms
Microsoft Mesh
Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard
Project Cambria: All there is to know about Meta's rumored Oculus Quest Pro
Spatial
Uncanny Valley

For over a year Chuck Anderson underwent a battery of tests to find out why he was feeling so physically unwell. After moving from the US to Sydney and still finding no answers, he was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and ADHD.

After cycles of depression and anxiety, Chuck was finally given information on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), which changed his life dramatically for the better.

Since then, Chuck has co-founded Living to Thrive with his partner, to help organisations build better overall resilience.

Links

Mental Health – Our World in Data
More Australians see their GP about mental health issues than about cold and flu
Top 10 causes of death for Americans ages 20 to 24
Mindfulness-based stress reduction
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, by Kristin Neff

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Professional double-bassist Craig Scott of the Sydney Conservatorium joins Dan and Pia to discuss the ultimate team: the jazz ensemble.

“There’s probably no better example of democracy than a jazz ensemble – individual freedom, but with responsibility to the group,” –Michelle ObamaJazz improvisation follows a set of rules that enable creativity within a structure, so that out of a predictable pattern can come something different each time it’s performed.

Within an ensemble, each member might get their own moment to lead, by taking on the melody of the piece and expanding on it. The musician in the lead role can then signal, through their solo, that it’s time for another musician to take up that leadership role. This requires all members of the band to be listening, not just to the notes, but for other cues to lead or make space for others.

Links

Judy Bailey Trio playing My Romance
Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz

Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz

In their first episode of season two, Dan and Pia explore the three Cs needed for success: clarity, climate and competence with the help of Dr Jessica Tonissen.

Download the Three Cs cheat sheet

Dan, Pia, and Jess review some of the key takeaways from season one of the We Not Me podcast:

Three things sales teams need to do to be more effective: episode 4 with Anna Britnor Guest
Bringing head and heart to teams: episode 6, with Lucy Hovanec
Teamwork on set: episode 8, with Erik Thomson
Agile teams: episode 9, with Natalie Peters
Diversity in Teams: episode 11, with Sahera Sumar
What teams can learn from sport: episode 7, with Owen Finegan
Clarity at speed: episode 5, with Todd Schroeder
Customer-centric teams: episode 10, with Stuart Dalziel
Teams in a work from anywhere world: episode 2, with Michelle Zimany
Compassion, Actually: episode 12, with Gillian Coutts

When you help people help, you help people hope. Gillian Coutts, Country Director at Potential Project discovered this when working within her community during Australia's border closing following the COVID outbreak. In her work, she saw teams come together in extraordinary ways, but she also shares findings from a UK study that has been replicated elsewhere, that show how we often see ourselves as having compassion, but not our neighbours.

In her discussion with Pia and Dan, Gillian explores the differences between empathy and compassion, and the importance of self-compassion to resilience.

Links

Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman
Perceptions Matter: The Common Cause UK Values Survey
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, by Dr. Kristin Neff
Squadify

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Humankind: A Hopeful History

For global leadership consultant Sahera Sumar, "diversity is a fact, but inclusion is the mindset", and it's possible for teams to be diverse but not inclusive.

Sahera felt like she denied her heritage in order to feel accepted and fit in at work. Many organisations run programmes to try and combat unconscious bias, but this is only the start of the journey, and there's much more work to do to foster inclusivity within teams.

As part of her work as a leadership consultant, Sahera builds on the foundation of unconscious bias training, and helps move people from a space of judgement to awareness and understanding, and then onto acceptance.

Links

Worldwide Sheroes
Squadify

Customer-centric companies are laser-focused on providing great experiences for their customers. For Stuart Dalziel, teams play a pivotal role in bringing experiences that create ease in customers' lives.

Using examples from café chains to high-end hotels, Stuart breaks down how teams share knowledge, roles, and responsibilities, in service of the Peter Drucker axiom: "The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer".

Links

Squadify

Every member of a squad is of equal value, regardless of their department, seniority, or pay scale. It's important to check egos at the door when forming a squad and embarking on a new project. Those are some of the principles held by Natalie Peters, change and transformation lead at Australian bank NAB.

After 20 years working in HR, Natalie began exploring the world of agile project management and human-centred design. In this discussion with Pia and Dan, she debunks some of the common myths around agile, and runs through effective structures, which are typically flatter than more traditional or waterfall management styles.

Links

Bridges' Transition Model
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Squadify

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

Actor Erik Thomson is no stranger to being part of a team, whether that be on the production set of a feature film or TV series. In his conversation with Dan and Pia, Erik discusses the importance of recognising everyone's role in a production, from lighting a scene to walking the red carpet at Cannes.

For Erik, building a solid working team is about breaking social barriers away from work. He emphasises the importance of clearing the eyeline so the actors can work distraction-free, and explores the role of psychological safety on set, especially when the action gets a bit more steamy.

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Aftertaste
The Luminaries
Coming Home in the Dark
Squadify

Sports teams have been evaluating their effectiveness for a long time, with the singular goal of improving performance. This week, Dan and Pia are joined by former Australian rugby player Owen Finegan, to look at the way businesses and not-for-profits can use data in the same way sport has for decades.

Owen played and coached professional rugby for 16 years before moving into the non-profit world, where he now sits as CEO of the Kids' Cancer Project. He took his learnings about honest – sometimes even brutal – feedback from the rugby pitch, and has adapted it to the way he leads teams, encouraging analysis combined with honesty and constructive feedback rather than criticism.

Links

Squadify

For civil engineering General Manager Lucy Hovanec, purpose can breathe life into teams, and in order to lead, self-knowledge is crucial.

In this discussion, Lucy shares with Dan and Pia her toolkit for working with teams across cultural divides and around the world, to help them wake up excited to come to work:

Asking questions to make sure everyone is aligned on the task at hand
Assessing the climate of a team and creating conditions for success
Using the Example, Impact, Change model of delivering feedback

Links

Psychological safety in teams – Episode 3 of We Not Me
Squadify

Google iterates in 30-minute increments, which is part of why this massive company is able to innovate so quickly at scale. This involves making mistakes, but recovering and correcting quickly. The pace at Google is a far cry from the stereotypical image of people lying around on beanbags or playing foosball.

As Managing Director for Global Public Sector Strategy and Sales at Google, Todd Schroeder has to work across multiple teams who are serving markets at different stages along the maturity curve. This means the idea of clarity can change from a traditional sense of certainty into becoming clear that things are uncertain.

In the midst of a global pandemic, the job of leading multiple teams moved from knowing what to do, to finding out what to do.

Dan, Pia and Todd discuss the process a new Google employee (a "noogler") goes through to becoming a full-fledged Googler, and some of the challenges they face along the way.

This week, Dan and Pia are joined by Anna Britnor Guest, who has over 30 years of technology sales experience and who now works to develop and coach salespeople within the SaaS industry.

They talk about whether sales "teams" are really teams and not just groups of people, pivoting the mantra of "don't lose alone" to "don't learn alone", and maintaining a common language around the sales process.

Anna also shares three key things teams can do right now to work more effectively to meet the customers' needs, and to meet their own needs.

Links

Alate Business Growth
Squadify

This week, Pia and Dan discuss psychological safety with Dr Jessica Tonissen, leadership and wellbeing coach, Doctor of Psychology and Associate Director at InLightening in Melbourne.

Dr Tonissen dispels some of the myths and misunderstandings around the term, how psychological safety does not have to come at the expense of performance, and that there's a difference between safety and artificial harmony.

The conversation also touches on our ingrained fear of rejection, and how it stimulates our fight-or-flight response.

Links

Psychological Safety Isn't the Same as Being Comfortable
Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, by Amy Edmondson
Rejection Really Hurts, UCLA Psychologists Find
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy Edmondson
Squadify

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

Empathic leadership is what's needed in a globally-distributed workforce, and replacing water-cooler moments isn't as simple as organising more mandatory Zoom calls.

This week, Dan and Pia talk remote collaboration with Sydney-based Michelle Zimany, Human Resources leader for the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. They discuss the loss of spontaneity and serendipity in the age where people only meet on Zoom, and missing those moments to have a quick chat while getting a coffee.

Michelle shares some of the events she's running and participating in within her organisation, to help people feel more connected without a feeling of enforced fun. She, Pia and Dan discuss the change in attitudes to work attire, and how rigid corporate thinking has given way to understanding and tolerance, now that so many of us are sharing our homes virtually.

Links

Sanofi
Squadify

Dan and Pia speak to Rob Metcalfe – a former commando now leadership consultant and team coach – about significant performance challenges, how groups of people need to work proactively together to solve them, and how important social capital can be in fostering team effectiveness.

Links

The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
Squadify

The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization

What makes a rockstar team? How can we work from anywhere? What part does connection play in today's world? Welcome to a brand new podcast, all about how humans connect and get stuff done together, presented by friends and colleagues Dan Hammond and Pia Lee.

Pia is the CEO of Squadify. She taught children and then wanted to find out what they did when they grew up, so became a leadership consultant.

After exploring engineering, Squadify Chief Product Officer Dan found analytical and people-focused joy in product management.

Subscribe now to hear new episodes of We Not Me, as soon as they're released.