Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / How to Build Unbreakable Teams: Sports Psychology Secrets for Business Leaders with Graham Winter

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How to Build Unbreakable Teams: Sports Psychology Secrets for Business Leaders with Graham Winter · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:00
Speaker 1: So when I look at your high performance or which
0:02
Speaker 1: about where where does one team fit in an organization?
0:05
Speaker 1: It's at the intersection of psychological safety and collective accountability.
0:09
Speaker 1: That's where you get high performance because you don't I mean,
0:12
Speaker 1: you need to look at the neuroscience around learning.
0:14
Speaker 2: You do not learn in a safe environment.
0:27
Speaker 3: Everyone. Before we get into this week's podcast, we got
0:29
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1:00
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1:05
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1:06
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1:33
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1:37
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1:40
Speaker 3: Great Winter, welcome to the podcast.
1:43
Speaker 2: Well, thank you pleasure.
1:44
Speaker 3: Now we were just chatting before coming on. There's quite
1:47
Speaker 3: a lot of connections between us, my PhD supervisor Eugene.
1:52
Speaker 3: I mean, you know very well. You also know John Crampton,
1:55
Speaker 3: Jeff Bond, who are like yourself, kind of legends in
1:58
Speaker 3: the sports psychology movement in Australia. Just give our listeners
2:03
Speaker 3: a bit of a sense of your career because it's
2:06
Speaker 3: pretty stellar. And you've both spack and forth between a
2:09
Speaker 3: couple of different dominions, right I have.
2:11
Speaker 1: Paul started in the organizational psych area with what was
2:15
Speaker 1: then Coopers and librand was sort of precursor at the
2:17
Speaker 1: Price Waterhouse Coopers.
2:19
Speaker 2: But I was also playing first.
2:20
Speaker 1: Class cricket and then South Australian is the sport we're
2:25
Speaker 1: looking for a psychologist and they wanted to recruit somebody
2:28
Speaker 1: that had been playing sport an elite level. So I
2:31
Speaker 1: did that job for a few years and then really
2:34
Speaker 1: just have the opportunity to combine those two passions of
2:36
Speaker 1: the organization on the sports psych area. So have the
2:39
Speaker 1: opportunity to sort of lead the sports site group for
2:42
Speaker 1: three Olympics with Prosperot house Coopers in their Strategic Change Group.
2:46
Speaker 1: And more recently last ten last decade or so, I've
2:49
Speaker 1: had my own consulting business, Think One Team so fuss
2:52
Speaker 1: continuing to do a bit of work in the cricket
2:54
Speaker 1: area as well. So performance psychology is a thread that
2:56
Speaker 1: runs through it mix of sport and business.
2:59
Speaker 3: And just for listen, so back whenever you did you
3:03
Speaker 3: you became a sports psychologist. Originally there was no actual
3:08
Speaker 3: professional and new degree or qualification in sports psychologists back then,
3:12
Speaker 3: was there no.
3:13
Speaker 1: No, There were no causes or programs in Australia at all.
3:17
Speaker 1: So it was very much I mean, for me, it
3:19
Speaker 1: was very much applying a lot of the organizational psychology
3:24
Speaker 1: lessons and I think the approach that I taught was
3:26
Speaker 1: probably worked quite well because the setup when I was
3:29
Speaker 1: working with athletes, was a lot about working with the coaches,
3:33
Speaker 1: and I think I've always felt that the approach I've
3:35
Speaker 1: wanted to take is to help the coaches to create
3:38
Speaker 1: the environment where the athletes are able to perform. And
3:41
Speaker 1: yes there is still the individual work with the athletes
3:43
Speaker 1: as well. So probably separated my approach a bit maybe
3:46
Speaker 1: from John and Jeff, for example, who were AIS for
3:50
Speaker 1: a while, Jeff for a long time, and then John
3:52
Speaker 1: was there and also Usathale's Institute of Sport.
3:54
Speaker 3: So when you were doing the Olympics, were you more
3:58
Speaker 3: in terms of that organization or stuff rather than the
4:02
Speaker 3: one on one with athletes.
4:04
Speaker 1: First up, I was working quite a lot with the shooters,
4:06
Speaker 1: with a number of sort of individual sports, but for
4:10
Speaker 1: Sydney in particular, I remember at that particular point, I
4:13
Speaker 1: was really not doing much sports psychology work at all,
4:15
Speaker 1: and herbe idiot was heading up Athletes Services and just
4:19
Speaker 1: contacted me and said, but we just need someone to
4:21
Speaker 1: help to do the setup. We're gonna have nine hundred team,
4:24
Speaker 1: about nine hundred and seventy, and we need somebody to
4:27
Speaker 1: work with the managers, with coaches and.
4:29
Speaker 2: To coordinate the psych area.
4:31
Speaker 1: And I remember having the conversation with Jeff saying I
4:33
Speaker 1: felt like a bit of an imposter. He said, and
4:35
Speaker 1: it's fine. There's enough sports sykes here to look at
4:37
Speaker 1: the athletes. Why don't you go and sort out a
4:40
Speaker 1: bit of the corporate and the corporating tree. So yeah,
4:45
Speaker 1: So that one felt a bit different to previous times
4:47
Speaker 1: where I was much more connected to the athletes out
4:50
Speaker 1: cycling and shooting and obviously sort of individuals that I
4:53
Speaker 1: knew from own Institute of Sport as well.
4:55
Speaker 3: So, m given that you've had a food in both
4:58
Speaker 3: camps for a long period sport and org sake, what
5:02
Speaker 3: would you say are the mean differences in terms of
5:06
Speaker 3: performance psychology and corporations versus performance psychology with athletes and
5:12
Speaker 3: sports teams? Anythink jumps to Maine.
5:15
Speaker 1: It's a great question, And I think in sport you've
5:17
Speaker 1: also got to separate the individual sports from the team sports.
5:21
Speaker 1: I think if you if you move into yeah, I
5:24
Speaker 1: did some week in Australian cricket team for a while
5:26
Speaker 1: and I've worked with one of the AFL teams and
5:28
Speaker 1: there's there's similarities to business there, Whereas I think the
5:31
Speaker 1: more you move into the individual sports, there's a difference,
5:35
Speaker 1: but I might sort of put a caveat on that
5:37
Speaker 1: in a moment. I mean, there's no question when you're
5:39
Speaker 1: working with Olympic level and so on, that when they're
5:41
Speaker 1: talking higher performance, they are talking high performance. You know
5:44
Speaker 1: it's world class, it's high standards, it's one hundred percent commitment.
5:48
Speaker 1: You don't get that, to be blunt, you don't get
5:50
Speaker 1: that in many corporations. You might get it across a
5:53
Speaker 1: leadership group. You might get it across she's just spent
5:56
Speaker 1: the morning with a with a team.
5:58
Speaker 2: That are working.
5:59
Speaker 1: They're quite a specialized team in the defense area. They're
6:02
Speaker 1: pretty committed to world class and standards and so on.
6:05
Speaker 1: But I think i'd probably say corporate it's more complex,
6:09
Speaker 1: it's slower, it's just kind of slower burn, and often
6:13
Speaker 1: there's less clarity about what success may or may not mean.
6:17
Speaker 1: Obviously in sales areas and it's on or a project,
6:19
Speaker 1: it's clearer. But then having said that, for the individual,
6:23
Speaker 1: I think there's so many lessons that we can help
6:26
Speaker 1: business leaders who are now experiencing conditions that are more uncertain,
6:30
Speaker 1: the more complex they do need. I'm actually I actually
6:33
Speaker 1: write a book in my God nineteen ninety one or
6:36
Speaker 1: ninety two called the business Athlete, and I think that's now. Yeah,
6:40
Speaker 1: in many ways, I've kind of a clow. That's really
6:43
Speaker 1: what we need to be helping a lot of people
6:44
Speaker 1: to do now is to treat themselves, you know, because
6:48
Speaker 1: if you want to operate in a high demand environment,
6:50
Speaker 1: you gotta look after yourself. You can look after your teammates,
6:53
Speaker 1: and then you've got to be able to know what
6:54
Speaker 1: matters and focus on what you need to be able
6:55
Speaker 1: to do. And that applies in any high demand environment
6:59
Speaker 1: as well. So I think you can learn lots from
7:00
Speaker 1: it from each and you can't bundle all the corporate
7:04
Speaker 1: stuff together either, because every culture's got its uniqueness as well.
7:08
Speaker 3: Interestingly, the business Athlete, I Reckon, Jim Lure and Tilney
7:11
Speaker 3: Schwartz actually probably stole that off you with their corporate athlete,
7:16
Speaker 3: do you remember now.
7:16
Speaker 2: I think that came later within Lar. I'm not quite
7:20
Speaker 2: sure what the I mean.
7:21
Speaker 1: My pronunciations might not be right, but he'd done mental
7:24
Speaker 1: toughness I ickon just before that. Interesting, it was about
7:30
Speaker 1: ninety two something. I was about thirty thirty two years ago,
7:34
Speaker 1: But for me, that was really the sort of transition
7:36
Speaker 1: point of in some respects going well, I've worked in
7:38
Speaker 1: business now it's spent sixteen years in.
7:41
Speaker 2: The sport area full time.
7:43
Speaker 1: But I actually wanted to both of them and I
7:44
Speaker 1: had this fabulous sort of contract with PwC, who had
7:47
Speaker 1: a strategic change group.
7:48
Speaker 2: So go to this wonderful experience.
7:50
Speaker 1: Now I'm working with some of the top athletes and
7:52
Speaker 1: coaches in the in the world and the Australian groups,
7:56
Speaker 1: while also working with people at the Singapore promenis is
7:59
Speaker 1: offered and large corporates around the world.
8:02
Speaker 2: So it was a kind of surreal experient. That was
8:04
Speaker 2: my university of learning about.
8:06
Speaker 1: Performance psychology because as you well know, yeah, there's the
8:10
Speaker 1: kind of science and the evidence, but yeah, but you're
8:13
Speaker 1: also going into spaces that people haven't done the research on,
8:16
Speaker 1: so you've got to create your own learning environment in
8:19
Speaker 1: there and testing environment as well.
8:21
Speaker 3: And do you find with athletes, particularly the individuals, that
8:28
Speaker 3: there is a pretty big eagle with some of these guys.
8:31
Speaker 3: I mean there has to be for the nature of it, right,
8:35
Speaker 3: to be right up there amongst the elite of the world,
8:39
Speaker 3: you've got to have a pretty big eagle. And it
8:42
Speaker 3: is the psychology for those guys. Does it have to
8:46
Speaker 3: be different than teams and corporates.
8:49
Speaker 1: It's the interesting one of the ego, isn't it, Because
8:53
Speaker 1: there's a level of self belief. But then for many
8:55
Speaker 1: athletes underneath one of their greatest drivers is the sense of.
9:01
Speaker 2: A fear. Yeah, that's that fear of not being good.
9:03
Speaker 1: Now, it's some of those elements of perfectionism which drive
9:08
Speaker 1: you to a certain point.
9:09
Speaker 2: But then there's a cost. It's a really tough one
9:11
Speaker 2: to generalize on.
9:13
Speaker 1: There's no question you have to have a level of
9:15
Speaker 1: ego to be able to put yourself in that situation
9:17
Speaker 1: and back yourself and so on. But there's and obviously
9:21
Speaker 1: you can get maybe the expression, you can get away
9:24
Speaker 1: with it more than an individual environment. In a team environment,
9:27
Speaker 1: obviously you've got responsibilities to your teammates and you're having
9:31
Speaker 1: to kind of sometimes trade off. Now, am I going
9:33
Speaker 1: to go for the basket versus pass at etca? Whereas
9:36
Speaker 1: the individuals are much more and can be much more
9:39
Speaker 1: focused or much more selfish, and some respects need to
9:41
Speaker 1: be because that level of economy.
9:43
Speaker 2: It's you. You're a tennis player. You're out there by
9:46
Speaker 2: yourself and I think having played.
9:48
Speaker 1: Sport, that was one of the things I guess I
9:50
Speaker 1: was always very mindful of, was like, i might be
9:53
Speaker 1: trying to help this person, but I'm not the one
9:55
Speaker 1: going out in the middle there. I'm not the Roosevelt,
9:58
Speaker 1: I think, the O, the one who's in the arena. Yeah,
10:01
Speaker 1: they're doing it, so they've got to find a way
10:04
Speaker 1: to do it. I mean, for some of the ways
10:06
Speaker 1: they do it have other costs. And as somebody said
10:09
Speaker 1: to me once, it's so true, just because they're elite
10:12
Speaker 1: physically doesn't mean they're elite psychologically.
10:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, good plot. And that's where the sports psychology comes
10:19
Speaker 3: in really really strongly, doesn't that it does?
10:22
Speaker 1: And in some ways the things that this is where
10:25
Speaker 1: it kind of get get sort of challenging because sometimes
10:28
Speaker 1: the stuff that will drive the outcome performance can.
10:31
Speaker 2: Also drive a level of self destruction.
10:34
Speaker 1: So you know, what is that, right balance between a
10:37
Speaker 1: level of obsessiveness that drives you to high standards versus
10:42
Speaker 1: a level of obsessiveness that causes you to dere damage
10:45
Speaker 1: to yourself or to physically mentally, or to relationships as well.
10:49
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, I mean, it's sort of abnormal psychology
10:53
Speaker 1: because when you're talking about the Olympics, You're talking about
10:56
Speaker 1: the best of the best, and that isn't normal, that's
11:00
Speaker 1: not average. You've got to find something out of the box.
11:03
Speaker 1: And I suppose we look at the sort of don't know,
11:05
Speaker 1: like the Roger Federers of this world and go, wow,
11:07
Speaker 1: isn't that just a wonderful model? But I've never seen
11:11
Speaker 1: people who don't have lots of self doubts and lots
11:14
Speaker 1: of sort of inner demons and challenges, and some of
11:17
Speaker 1: them sport and proving themselves in sport is a way
11:20
Speaker 1: to deal with that, but sadly, for some it doesn't
11:23
Speaker 1: actually optimately prove that. Even winning an Olympic gold medal
11:26
Speaker 1: was steel. That sense of I'm not good enough for
11:30
Speaker 1: what I do is not good enough for Wow?
11:32
Speaker 3: Is that all it is?
11:33
Speaker 2: And I think it's an interesting challenge.
11:35
Speaker 1: And it does apply across the corporate area as well,
11:37
Speaker 1: about how do how do we personally define what success
11:41
Speaker 1: means for us all the life that we want to live.
11:43
Speaker 2: And you know, we're all we're all learning that journey
11:46
Speaker 2: the whole way through.
11:47
Speaker 3: There's got to be so many take ropes right at
11:50
Speaker 3: that elite level. And I think back to my time
11:53
Speaker 3: in the military as well. You know, there's a take
11:56
Speaker 3: rope with athletes around training and being optimately prepared and
12:01
Speaker 3: then just tepping over into overtraining syndrome. Right, that is
12:05
Speaker 3: so narrow that line. And then with the psychology, as
12:09
Speaker 3: you said, that obsessiveness, but that tightrope too, it's going
12:15
Speaker 3: down into a horrible, horrible vortex, right, and the perfectionisms
12:19
Speaker 3: that that's required. There's just got to be so many
12:23
Speaker 3: different type ropes that you've got to help them naviget
12:26
Speaker 3: as a as a psychologist.
12:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of that then, says you or no,
12:30
Speaker 1: goes to the quality of the support network that's around them.
12:34
Speaker 1: Their coach, their their colleagues, they're sometimes the medical team.
12:38
Speaker 2: The quality of the people that people put.
12:40
Speaker 1: Around on that tells you a bit about them, particularly
12:43
Speaker 1: if they have a level of choice in that obviously,
12:45
Speaker 1: But I suppose the sort of thing that we you know,
12:47
Speaker 1: well will continually whenever I work with a corporate group,
12:50
Speaker 1: one of the first things I'll ever take them through
12:52
Speaker 1: is well, just have a look at what's the nature
12:53
Speaker 1: of the challenges you're facing, and then.
12:56
Speaker 2: We'll sort of go, well, okay, so what extent are those.
12:58
Speaker 1: Technical challenges, linear challenges where there's kind of a there's
13:02
Speaker 1: a logical way to solve this problem. We've got to
13:04
Speaker 1: build a bridge. Fine, how do you build the bridge? Right, Well,
13:06
Speaker 1: there's a body of evidence, there's engineering and so on.
13:09
Speaker 1: But then you go, well, okay, that's how you build
13:12
Speaker 1: a bridge. But then let's assume you've got a community
13:13
Speaker 1: on one side in the community on the other and
13:15
Speaker 1: they aving a fight with each other. How do you
13:17
Speaker 1: now solve that? That's not technical, that's adaptive, that's nonlinear,
13:21
Speaker 1: And therefore you've got to develop an ability in a
13:24
Speaker 1: way to learn and experience your way through that.
13:27
Speaker 2: And I think for me that's part of the sort
13:30
Speaker 2: of maturity.
13:31
Speaker 1: It certainly immaturity you're trying to develop in athletes, and
13:34
Speaker 1: it's also the capability that you're trying to develop within
13:37
Speaker 1: leaders and teams in business to be able to deal
13:39
Speaker 1: with that balance of the technical and the adaptive, because
13:42
Speaker 1: they're completely different, completely different skill sets. You know, one's
13:45
Speaker 1: about being disciplined and focused and checking it off and executing.
13:49
Speaker 1: The other ones about dealing with nuances and uncertainty and
13:52
Speaker 1: ambiguity and people's emotions. And there's no right answer, You've
13:56
Speaker 1: got to make the answer right rather than kind of
13:58
Speaker 1: find the right answer.
14:00
Speaker 2: That means you're then dealing with levels of frustration and
14:03
Speaker 2: so on.
14:03
Speaker 1: So to me, I guess what I'm always trying to
14:05
Speaker 1: do is help people to develop kind of like a mindset.
14:09
Speaker 2: If you're like fact, how do I approach this?
14:11
Speaker 1: I mean, you listen to one of your podcasts recently
14:13
Speaker 1: talking about the sort of experience in the Antarctic, You
14:17
Speaker 1: know that sort of Yeah, there's lots of technical challenges there,
14:21
Speaker 1: but a lot of it's about learning your way through it,
14:23
Speaker 1: isn't it and leaning into it. And it's that ability
14:27
Speaker 1: And I think I learned that over time that it's
14:30
Speaker 1: it's certainly in business, helf.
14:31
Speaker 2: And so I'm not here to build a team.
14:32
Speaker 1: I'm here to help you how to learn because your
14:34
Speaker 1: environment's going to constantly challenge and change for you. So
14:38
Speaker 1: how do we become fast learners who can then adapt
14:41
Speaker 1: as we move forward? And that's a hell of a
14:43
Speaker 1: mindset shift for someone who sees themselves as a subject
14:46
Speaker 1: matter expert. That delivers the guys some of the guys
14:50
Speaker 1: I had in the group this morning, I mean, they're
14:52
Speaker 1: some of the top engineers in defense in Australia. But
14:54
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges aren't technical. The biggest challenges are adaptive,
14:57
Speaker 1: dealing with stakeholders and dealing with their team teams and
15:00
Speaker 1: trying to get people to work across boundaries and deal
15:03
Speaker 1: with conflicting priorities and so on. And they all have
15:06
Speaker 1: a kind of cognitive load and a kind of emotional
15:09
Speaker 1: load that what you're trying to do, I guess as
15:11
Speaker 1: a psych is to help them develop some skills and
15:13
Speaker 1: approaches to deal with it. Ultimately, you try to strengthen them.
15:17
Speaker 1: It's no different than physical training. You can help the person,
15:20
Speaker 1: but thik able to learn some are doing. It's always
15:22
Speaker 1: been my philosophy.
15:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Let's not talk about team cultures. Right, So
15:27
Speaker 3: you've written a best selling book, Think One Team. What
15:31
Speaker 3: does it take for a team to truly operate as one?
15:36
Speaker 3: And how have those requirements So a couple of parts
15:38
Speaker 3: of this question. Have there those requirements evolved over time?
15:41
Speaker 3: But then how are those requirements different when you get
15:45
Speaker 3: into big organizations which often have a metric structure where
15:50
Speaker 3: there is lots of competing agendas from different parts of
15:54
Speaker 3: the business. Right, Because that starts to get tricked. So
15:58
Speaker 3: let let's take the easy bit first, generally, what does
16:01
Speaker 3: it teach job red as one? And then are both
16:04
Speaker 3: the changes over time? And then when we get into
16:07
Speaker 3: complex businesses.
16:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Look, I like go back to some of
16:10
Speaker 1: the work that Hackman did sort of twenty years ago
16:13
Speaker 1: in performance psychology around teamwork, and he coined these two
16:17
Speaker 1: phrases mission cohesion and social cohesion. So if you think
16:21
Speaker 1: the sort of mission cohesion is, yeah, we're going up
16:24
Speaker 1: the mountain, We're going to get up there summit and
16:26
Speaker 1: get back successfully, so that's the mission, and then you
16:29
Speaker 1: kind of go up the social cohesion of the level
16:31
Speaker 1: of trust and confidence and so on and each other.
16:34
Speaker 1: And I think that to some extent is the first
16:37
Speaker 1: thing to try and work out with the team. Do
16:40
Speaker 1: we have a mix of both, because I think, like
16:43
Speaker 1: the group I was working with this morning, this social
16:46
Speaker 1: cohesion is actually going pretty well, but I think they're
16:49
Speaker 1: still kind of struggling a bit with what the mission
16:51
Speaker 1: is because it's complex and they have lots of different
16:55
Speaker 1: elements to it. So unlike a sports team that says
16:58
Speaker 1: we want to win the premiership or we want a
17:01
Speaker 1: final at the Olympics, it's not as clear for them
17:04
Speaker 1: and things keep changing. Obviously can't go into detail, but
17:08
Speaker 1: things keep changing.
17:09
Speaker 2: So i'd start with that point.
17:11
Speaker 1: I think it's that point of are we endeavoring to
17:14
Speaker 1: because if it's social cohesion you're looking for, then you
17:17
Speaker 1: are still trying to create a sense of identity.
17:19
Speaker 2: Now why are we here together?
17:21
Speaker 1: And the metaphor I was using right at the start
17:22
Speaker 1: of this morning session was, look, you know, I just
17:24
Speaker 1: actually went to a memorial service at a cricket club
17:27
Speaker 1: that I was part of earlier in the week and
17:28
Speaker 1: I just said them, you know, it's reflecting back over
17:31
Speaker 1: four decades the number of people that have invested in
17:34
Speaker 1: building that club and the things that they're done to
17:37
Speaker 1: build that club and its culture and its history and
17:40
Speaker 1: its resources and its.
17:41
Speaker 2: Artifacts and so on. So are you investing in this team?
17:44
Speaker 2: What is this identity?
17:45
Speaker 1: So I think that's almost the first thing, is that
17:47
Speaker 1: that sense of the team having its own identity then
17:51
Speaker 1: establishing that purpose. Why always use a simple model? Wrote
17:55
Speaker 1: a book called High Performance Leadership almost twenty years ago now,
17:58
Speaker 1: came out of the back end of the in the
18:00
Speaker 1: Olympics and the work with PwC and PwC had done
18:04
Speaker 1: a series of helped us to do and coordinated a
18:07
Speaker 1: series of interviews and evans gathering across a vast range
18:12
Speaker 1: of different types of organizations, but the majority of them
18:15
Speaker 1: were organizations that operated in small, fast teams, so special military,
18:20
Speaker 1: emergency medicine, first responders, some business areas and so on,
18:25
Speaker 1: and we were trying to look at what what is
18:27
Speaker 1: it that seems to enable you to create that environment
18:30
Speaker 1: where you just have one team, but you can form teams,
18:33
Speaker 1: and teams can come together and they can go and
18:35
Speaker 1: execute things, and we land I won't go through the
18:39
Speaker 1: more detailed model, but the simple, the simplest thing that
18:41
Speaker 1: I could come up with was align, collaborate, learn, Because
18:44
Speaker 1: when I looked at every one of those teams, and
18:46
Speaker 1: I apologize to anybody who's ever had a knee reconstruction,
18:50
Speaker 1: but the letters are ACL, which are very unfortunate that
18:54
Speaker 1: many of my clients know exactly what an ACL is.
18:57
Speaker 1: Is the last thing you need. But if you think
18:59
Speaker 1: probably of any you've worked with, there's an alignment, there's
19:02
Speaker 1: a collaboration, there's a learning, and if you put that
19:05
Speaker 1: into a loop, then you've got to spin that loop
19:08
Speaker 1: at the speed of relevance. So remember we do some
19:10
Speaker 1: work with fire and risky useap bales and they're looking
19:13
Speaker 1: at that, going, we got three of them.
19:15
Speaker 3: We've got like a big.
19:16
Speaker 1: Slow loop, which is like our whole strategic planning loop.
19:20
Speaker 1: Then we've kind of got a more kind of operational
19:22
Speaker 1: type loop that you could sort of go, Yeah.
19:24
Speaker 2: We align, we collaborate, we learn, and we do that.
19:26
Speaker 2: How we do that weekly? We do it monthly on
19:29
Speaker 2: a variety of.
19:29
Speaker 1: Way we communicate, the way we measure success that the
19:32
Speaker 1: projects we work on and so on. And then when
19:35
Speaker 1: there's a fire, we're spinning that align collaborate, learn loop, yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: and every moment. So the defense guys call it the
19:42
Speaker 1: speed of relevance. So I think part of the broader
19:46
Speaker 1: answer to that is what do you need in your
19:49
Speaker 1: environment for alignments, for collaboration and for learning, and if
19:53
Speaker 1: you unpack each of those alignments, not just we know
19:57
Speaker 1: what the goal is. No, no, no, we need to
19:58
Speaker 1: be committed exactly. I'm bringing your words back to you.
20:01
Speaker 1: But you know, as you said, when you're tied together
20:03
Speaker 1: with these other people, it's a we, not me. So
20:06
Speaker 1: alignment's a commitment collaboration to me, is sharing, yeah are we.
20:10
Speaker 1: Collaboration is sharing sharing resources, ideas, information and so on,
20:14
Speaker 1: and then learning is your ability to adapt. So whenever
20:17
Speaker 1: I'm working with a team, I always use that aligne Collaborate, learn,
20:22
Speaker 1: And I'll often introduce it with a bit of a
20:24
Speaker 1: story around one that we put in the book talking
20:27
Speaker 1: for turbulence around a Quantus pilot Kevin Sullivan talking about
20:31
Speaker 1: his experience of Quantus's one of their two major incidents,
20:36
Speaker 1: when a flight from Singapore to Perth went into a
20:39
Speaker 1: dive back in two.
20:41
Speaker 2: Thousand and two thousand and nine.
20:42
Speaker 1: I think, and you know, he sort of recounts the
20:44
Speaker 1: pilot's metaphor, the pilot's mental model. Aviate, navigate, Communicate. Now, Aviate,
20:50
Speaker 1: there's no rumway underneath. You keep the plane in the air. Navigate,
20:54
Speaker 1: it's not staying up here forever. We're going to get
20:56
Speaker 1: it down in landah. Communicate, You're going to need resort
21:00
Speaker 1: and support when you get there. So to me, that's
21:02
Speaker 1: the mental model. And I guess when I'm working with
21:04
Speaker 1: people in these high demand environments, you try to give
21:08
Speaker 1: them these simple mental models scaffolding.
21:10
Speaker 2: If you like that they can then use. So when
21:12
Speaker 2: I'm working with the team.
21:13
Speaker 1: It's aligned, collaborate, learn, and then I think that final
21:17
Speaker 1: question you asked about the complexity of the environment, it's
21:20
Speaker 1: then the ability is so well, Okay, I think the
21:23
Speaker 1: evidence shows us that the best way to get teams
21:25
Speaker 1: to collaborate with each other is to have them confident
21:28
Speaker 1: in their own identity and their own confidence and then
21:30
Speaker 1: find a superordinent goal. So what you're trying to do
21:33
Speaker 1: is find a way of getting them to align and
21:35
Speaker 1: collaborate and learn. What's the reason behind that? So, but
21:39
Speaker 1: my sense is always under pressure the last the last
21:41
Speaker 1: thing you learn, first thing you forget. So I'm always
21:44
Speaker 1: just hammering teams I'm working with. Are we align, are
21:47
Speaker 1: we collaborating?
21:47
Speaker 2: Are we learning? How do we know?
21:49
Speaker 1: How are we going to get better at that? What
21:50
Speaker 1: does collaborate mean if you're in a business context, solving
21:53
Speaker 1: problems together, partnering more effectively, sharing resources?
21:56
Speaker 2: What does learn mean?
21:58
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we're learning about the task. What about the dynamics?
22:01
Speaker 1: So I'd encourage your listeners just to think a line, collaborate, learn,
22:04
Speaker 1: a line collaborate learn and how what's the cadence of that?
22:08
Speaker 1: Which is really back to quality management demon plan to
22:11
Speaker 1: check adapt or even not the basic scientific model, it's
22:14
Speaker 1: a learning model.
22:15
Speaker 2: That's what you make in an a deptive environment.
22:17
Speaker 3: I want to pick up on You talked about Hackman
22:20
Speaker 3: and these the idea about smission and social cohesion, and
22:24
Speaker 3: when you said that, a conversation just popped into my head.
22:28
Speaker 3: I interviewed a guy called Lee Ellis a number of
22:30
Speaker 3: years ago who spent five and a half years in
22:33
Speaker 3: the Hanoi Hilton prison camp in Vietnam. I don't know
22:36
Speaker 3: if you're familiar with the story around that, but these
22:40
Speaker 3: guys were in there and they were brutally tortured, and
22:43
Speaker 3: they were in solitary confinement, and there the leader in
22:47
Speaker 3: the in their Jim Stockdale. He actually spent seven and
22:52
Speaker 3: a half years in that prison camp, four years in
22:54
Speaker 3: solitary confinement and two years in leg irons. But Lee
22:58
Speaker 3: said to me he was very, very big on a
23:02
Speaker 3: twin focus of mission and people. And it was just
23:05
Speaker 3: always mission and people mission and people mission and people
23:08
Speaker 3: right being totally united behind the mission. But this whole
23:13
Speaker 3: idea of that social cohesion. And Lee told me they
23:17
Speaker 3: created this thing called the top code when they found
23:20
Speaker 3: out that they were going to be put in solitary,
23:22
Speaker 3: which was a way that they could top out the
23:24
Speaker 3: letters of the alphabet and communicate with each other. And
23:28
Speaker 3: Lee said, that was the glue that held these guys together,
23:32
Speaker 3: that got them through those ridiculous amounts of torture, was
23:37
Speaker 3: that that social connection, right, And it kind of strikes
23:41
Speaker 3: me that it's it's actually a good sort of overview
23:46
Speaker 3: for people in their own life, right, mission and social cohesion, Right,
23:50
Speaker 3: what's your purpose? But people, social connection, social cohesian relationships,
23:55
Speaker 3: those sorts of things, so we can really generalize that
23:58
Speaker 3: high performance stuff not just from business and sport, but
24:01
Speaker 3: to individuals and their own personal life as well. I think,
24:04
Speaker 3: oh absolutely, yeah, I think yeah.
24:07
Speaker 1: I mean one of the phrases I use a lot
24:08
Speaker 1: of people first, task close behind, nice, Like what I
24:12
Speaker 1: assume is that.
24:13
Speaker 2: We know what the mission is.
24:15
Speaker 1: But if we do, because then in some of the
24:17
Speaker 1: people I work with in the corporate area, if they'll
24:19
Speaker 1: tend to go task first, people second, or tasks people
24:23
Speaker 1: when you've got time.
24:24
Speaker 3: And probably more in certain industries, right well, ones that
24:28
Speaker 3: are very competitive, like like banking and those sorts of
24:31
Speaker 3: things very much task focused generally.
24:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, it causes people that, But it's that
24:38
Speaker 1: ability to get them to pause for a minute and go,
24:41
Speaker 1: hang in a minute, think about the tone by which
24:43
Speaker 1: you start the meeting, et cetera.
24:45
Speaker 2: So exactly, I think.
24:46
Speaker 1: But yeah, the Stockdale and the Stockdale paradox, that's sort
24:50
Speaker 1: of yeah, that that sort of ability to well, that
24:52
Speaker 1: was that was the stuff that became confront the brutal.
24:56
Speaker 3: Facts, which right, yeahs is good, great y, Yeah, retain
25:01
Speaker 3: the faith that you will prevail in the end and
25:03
Speaker 3: time confront them brutal facts of your reality.
25:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, suck it up for today.
25:08
Speaker 3: That's what you're just going to have to deal with.
25:09
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's that it's that pragmatic approach versus over
25:14
Speaker 1: optimism or over overly pessimistic.
25:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, she'll be right me. It does not fly in
25:20
Speaker 3: times of difficulties.
25:23
Speaker 2: No, No, it's narrow the focus.
25:27
Speaker 3: But know why, let's move on. One of the reasons,
25:31
Speaker 3: one of the big reasons I got the thing that
25:34
Speaker 3: caught my eye was you talking about psychological safety in
25:39
Speaker 3: a very similar way that I've been thinking about it.
25:41
Speaker 3: So you have rather preocatively suggested that that even though
25:46
Speaker 3: psychological safety is essential, and I think we would all
25:48
Speaker 3: agree that it is too often now becoming an excuse
25:52
Speaker 3: for mediocracy. And I would add on to that people
25:56
Speaker 3: are using it as an excuse not to be held to.
26:01
Speaker 1: Right.
26:01
Speaker 3: So what do you mean by it's being becoming an
26:04
Speaker 3: excuse for mediocracy?
26:06
Speaker 1: Look, I guess it probably starts with the unfortunate naming.
26:10
Speaker 1: The psychological safety is badly named, and I don't blame
26:14
Speaker 1: don't blame Amy Edmonds, I know anyone for that. But
26:17
Speaker 1: what we've got at the moment is this confusion between
26:20
Speaker 1: psycho social safety, which is the environment in which you
26:24
Speaker 1: feel you're not going to be bullied, you're going.
26:26
Speaker 2: To be harassed, etcetera.
26:29
Speaker 1: But the research the experience around psychological safety it's done
26:34
Speaker 1: in a team environment. So I think that's the first thing.
26:36
Speaker 1: It's about teamwork. And the second thing is the research
26:40
Speaker 1: again on psych safety very clearly defines it as that
26:43
Speaker 1: ability in a sense to be yourself and to be
26:46
Speaker 1: able to express yourself. And I talk to you first responders,
26:50
Speaker 1: for example, and say, well, you couldn't have psych safety
26:53
Speaker 1: if you're in a fire environment. They'll turn around and say,
26:55
Speaker 1: are you kidding? That's exactly what you need. And then
26:58
Speaker 1: when you unpack that you see that for them, psychological
27:01
Speaker 1: safety is anybody can call out at any moment, any
27:04
Speaker 1: level of risk or concern or whatever, because you can
27:08
Speaker 1: speak up because you know that you've got to be
27:09
Speaker 1: at your best to create the environment for yourself and
27:12
Speaker 1: your maids. But on the other hand, the bit that's
27:14
Speaker 1: missing is collective accountability. So to me, they are two
27:17
Speaker 1: circles that fit together. So when I look at your
27:20
Speaker 1: high performance or which about where where does one team
27:22
Speaker 1: fit in an organization? It's at the intersection of psychological
27:26
Speaker 1: safety that the proper definition and collective accountability. That's where
27:31
Speaker 1: you get higher performance because you don't I mean, you
27:33
Speaker 1: only need to look at the neuroscience around learning. You
27:35
Speaker 1: do not learn in a safe environment. You learn in
27:38
Speaker 1: a kind of roller coaster process. So yep, I feel like, yeah,
27:42
Speaker 1: pulls create an environment where I feel like I can
27:44
Speaker 1: have a goal, I can test myself, I can push
27:46
Speaker 1: myself for the limits, and I want to do that
27:50
Speaker 1: because I reckon, we can do something really special here.
27:52
Speaker 2: So it's that ability to put those two together. And
27:54
Speaker 2: my consumer of the mediocrity is that and I've seen it.
27:57
Speaker 1: I reckon probably my first I don't know if The
28:00
Speaker 1: first four or five conversations with chief executives at the
28:02
Speaker 1: start of this year were what the hell do we
28:05
Speaker 1: do with this thing called psychological safety? My ops managers,
28:08
Speaker 1: my operations leaders are scared witless to have a conversation.
28:11
Speaker 1: MYR people want to run run training courses on site safety.
28:15
Speaker 1: I don't disagree that we want to look out through
28:17
Speaker 1: our people, but we've got stuff to deliver here and I.
28:20
Speaker 2: Don't know how to do it.
28:21
Speaker 1: So what we've been doing very strongly for the last
28:24
Speaker 1: sort of six nine months is getting groups together and
28:27
Speaker 1: very simply just saying, if you're in an environment with
28:29
Speaker 1: you you feel confident and fearless and bold, tell me
28:33
Speaker 1: about that environment. And then we say, now, tell me
28:36
Speaker 1: about the environment if you feel like you're empowered and
28:39
Speaker 1: you're accountable to do really good things. Now let's put
28:42
Speaker 1: those two together.
28:44
Speaker 2: What is that environment? Because that's the environment.
28:46
Speaker 1: So my concern is that it's for a whole host
28:50
Speaker 1: of reasons, some being that sense of I don't want
28:52
Speaker 1: to speak up about it, and others kind of comfortable
28:55
Speaker 1: that they're sitting behind the mediocre. Now, I found ninety
28:58
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of sponsors I've had to articles
29:02
Speaker 1: and a variety of other things have been people say,
29:04
Speaker 1: thank goodness for actually defining what this thing is rather
29:07
Speaker 1: than what people have sort of wanted it to become.
29:10
Speaker 3: Yes, And I think there are a small I mean,
29:14
Speaker 3: we know that in any business, in any team, there
29:17
Speaker 3: is a small amount of malingerers right who will grab
29:21
Speaker 3: onto anything to protect them from being held to account.
29:25
Speaker 3: And I think psychological safety is their new beacon that
29:28
Speaker 3: they reach for.
29:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think if I add to that, it's
29:30
Speaker 1: also a sense of we can't make our employees uncomfortable.
29:35
Speaker 2: They will I continue to. But the challenge for you
29:40
Speaker 2: as a leader is people will happily.
29:43
Speaker 1: Go into uncertain, uncomfortable, challenging environments if they feel they
29:47
Speaker 1: have a choice and that they feel that they have
29:50
Speaker 1: a level of safety net or support. That's your role
29:54
Speaker 1: as a leader, not to protect them and keep them
29:56
Speaker 1: out of it. That's the worst that that's over parenting.
30:00
Speaker 1: I mean, I watched my little grandson going, Okay, I
30:03
Speaker 1: really don't want him to bust too many bones, so
30:06
Speaker 1: I'm there sort of catching him.
30:09
Speaker 2: But he's got to fall a.
30:10
Speaker 3: Bit, got to climb a bloody tree rightly.
30:15
Speaker 2: And the bit of is he does that.
30:16
Speaker 1: And then I watched my little granddaughter and she's going
30:19
Speaker 1: up even faster, and you, okay, I do need to
30:21
Speaker 1: put a little safety net around that.
30:23
Speaker 2: That's that's me. It's that wonderful opportunity. Oh say, the leaders,
30:27
Speaker 2: you got two roles.
30:28
Speaker 1: You've got to unlock potential and you've got to unblock
30:32
Speaker 1: And if you put in these fake views of what
30:35
Speaker 1: safety is, you're just putting in blockages. You're blocking people's potential.
30:39
Speaker 1: You're not doing them any favors. Exactly the same as
30:42
Speaker 1: with kids. You want to build their level of resilience.
30:45
Speaker 1: You don't learn resilience in a course.
30:50
Speaker 2: You just dime your comment.
30:51
Speaker 1: I've heard you say it a number of times in
30:53
Speaker 1: your podcast. There is massive mental training in the gym.
30:56
Speaker 1: Of course, the reds yea, what you're training for you've
30:59
Speaker 1: building said a goo, hold the tench hold your shape
31:02
Speaker 1: when you're under proachure.
31:03
Speaker 2: I mean, because that's what you want to do, isn't it.
31:06
Speaker 1: You want to hold your shape physically emotionally, because that's
31:10
Speaker 1: what we need people to be able to do.
31:11
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I love every he said
31:15
Speaker 3: about it, and I actually made me reflect back on
31:17
Speaker 3: my time when I was in the military, and particularly
31:19
Speaker 3: when I did helicopter search and rescue in the Mountains
31:22
Speaker 3: Sinadas of Scotland, which is friggin dangerous game, right, we
31:26
Speaker 3: had something called the tabs offering were anything to do
31:31
Speaker 3: with safety. Even an er crewman who was a leading
31:35
Speaker 3: hand could call out the most senior officer about anything
31:40
Speaker 3: to do with safety, right, So that to me was
31:43
Speaker 3: psychological safety. But it didn't mean that you couldn't be
31:45
Speaker 3: held to account, and it didn't mean that you couldn't
31:49
Speaker 3: take orders and things like that, right. I think I
31:52
Speaker 3: think it's being very diluted, as is many of the
31:56
Speaker 3: things today, Like the word trauma has been massively a
32:00
Speaker 3: louted to the point where I'm hearing teenagers talking about
32:03
Speaker 3: their trauma of a breakup. It's like when you look
32:06
Speaker 3: at d SM definition of REGI amount of drama. It's
32:09
Speaker 3: about fear of your life or someone very close to you.
32:12
Speaker 3: But NA, that's being diluted, and this whole safety thing
32:16
Speaker 3: is being diluted massively. And I think to your point,
32:21
Speaker 3: we are coddling. We are molly cuddling individuals left, right
32:26
Speaker 3: and center and within organizations, and it's becoming really hard
32:29
Speaker 3: to get shit done.
32:30
Speaker 2: You are echoing what I'm hearing constantly.
32:33
Speaker 1: You know, I've never heard chief executives and senior leaders
32:38
Speaker 1: be more pessimistic about the environment in which they're trying
32:41
Speaker 1: to operate at the moment. They just feel that from
32:44
Speaker 1: a governance perspective. Now since the Banking Royal Commission, there's
32:47
Speaker 1: just so much governance pressure that you've got all of
32:50
Speaker 1: that social pressure as well, and even makes you point.
32:53
Speaker 1: A moment ago, I got to ask that I was
32:55
Speaker 1: just speaking at a lunch recently and somebody's said to me,
32:58
Speaker 1: my beause my daughter is missed out on this and
33:01
Speaker 1: they're feeling really depressed or something and whatever, And I
33:04
Speaker 1: sort of stopped them from a moment and said, look,
33:06
Speaker 1: I've done some clinical site work over the years, and
33:09
Speaker 1: I've seen sad, and I've seen depressed, And when I
33:12
Speaker 1: see depressed, I desperately want to give the child my
33:15
Speaker 1: mobile phone number because I'm genuinely scared and worried about them.
33:21
Speaker 1: When I see sad, I just want to make sure
33:23
Speaker 1: that they keep the lines of communication open. But they
33:26
Speaker 1: need to learn to deal with sad, and we're not
33:28
Speaker 1: allowing people to do that. There's a range of human
33:31
Speaker 1: emotions for a reason, and we're overcoddling exactly.
33:34
Speaker 3: I think we are pathologizing feelings is kind of high.
33:39
Speaker 3: I would set that up. You know, what used to
33:41
Speaker 3: be called nervous is no anxiety, and what used to
33:44
Speaker 3: be called sad is no depression. Anyway, don't get me
33:47
Speaker 3: started on that one. But let's return to the sakes.
33:51
Speaker 3: If so, I give some people some tips a bit
33:55
Speaker 3: because there'll be lots of corporates listening to this podcast,
33:58
Speaker 3: you know, from people who I've worked with for how
34:00
Speaker 3: do you create a culture where people do fansy if
34:04
Speaker 3: to speak up, but still they're hell to account Yeah.
34:08
Speaker 2: Look, I start with conversations. Well, it's the leader's got
34:11
Speaker 2: a lot of model it.
34:12
Speaker 1: But we have this simple three point chip process that
34:16
Speaker 1: we start to try and in bed with any leadership group,
34:18
Speaker 1: and we start on the psych safety accountability bit.
34:21
Speaker 2: We say, here's your three things.
34:23
Speaker 1: Number one set the tone, so set the tone in
34:26
Speaker 1: your email, set the tone in your meetings, Set the
34:29
Speaker 1: tone in any sort of exchange one on one, a
34:32
Speaker 1: debrief or whatever. And that tone is a mix of people. Well,
34:36
Speaker 1: to me, it's people.
34:36
Speaker 2: First, task close behind. So we're here for a reason.
34:40
Speaker 2: Second habit is invite participation.
34:43
Speaker 1: Make sure everybody's in, make sure they're participating, you're getting
34:46
Speaker 1: views from them, not just run by the extroverts. And
34:49
Speaker 1: then the third one is facilitate constructively. So take people
34:53
Speaker 1: towards a solution or take them towards a goal, and that's.
34:57
Speaker 2: Bringing both of those together. Always start with that.
35:01
Speaker 1: We take a you know, I've got a crew by
35:03
Speaker 1: starting with a group and a police group next week,
35:06
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what we'll be asking them to do.
35:08
Speaker 1: And we'll catch up with them maybe a couple of
35:09
Speaker 1: weeks and we'll debrief it, but it'll be what's the
35:12
Speaker 1: tone we want to set, how do we do that?
35:14
Speaker 1: And then be getting some feedback. So then the second
35:17
Speaker 1: thing I think leaders can do is and it's hard
35:19
Speaker 1: for leaders to get feedback, but it's asking insights. It's saying, yeah, Paul,
35:23
Speaker 1: I reckon, I've done okay, but what's one thing you
35:25
Speaker 1: reckon if it would be even better? If what would
35:28
Speaker 1: make this an even more open experience for us? So
35:31
Speaker 1: what would make this more impactful for your listeners? So
35:34
Speaker 1: it's getting everybody to go, oh wow, my leader's open.
35:38
Speaker 1: So there's a vulnerability. There there's an openness to learn
35:41
Speaker 1: that's mean. And then the third one is debriefing. As
35:43
Speaker 1: a sort of senior SAS person said to me that
35:46
Speaker 1: it's always stuck in my head relentless and intensitive debriefing. Now,
35:49
Speaker 1: maybe it's not always relentless and intensive debriefing, but if
35:54
Speaker 1: you want accountability, you've got a pause. And maybe it's
35:57
Speaker 1: a really good point to make, is we sort of
35:59
Speaker 1: head towards sort of closure that when we did that
36:01
Speaker 1: research around the line, collaborate, learn the one thing that
36:04
Speaker 1: hit me and the and it really sort of hit
36:06
Speaker 1: me in the face, but it took a while for
36:08
Speaker 1: us to see it was special military, emergency, medicine, sport, etc.
36:13
Speaker 1: All of those environments have a natural pause. They have
36:16
Speaker 1: a pause between mission, between incident, between startup event, finish event,
36:21
Speaker 1: halftimes and whatever. They have a natural inbuilt point where
36:24
Speaker 1: they can learn, so they align, game plan, collaborate, get
36:27
Speaker 1: out and play, learn what's.
36:29
Speaker 2: Worked, what hasn't worked, how do we move forward?
36:31
Speaker 1: There is no natural pauses unless you're running a project
36:34
Speaker 1: or an agile process where you've got good retrospective. So
36:38
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is to build the cadence,
36:40
Speaker 1: so I'd really hone on that. So three things focus
36:44
Speaker 1: on the conversations, setting the tone of apticipation, facilitate constructively,
36:48
Speaker 1: and then take that into being the person that people
36:51
Speaker 1: see wanting to learn and being vulnerable and open to learn.
36:54
Speaker 2: And then that third pace in the DeBras.
36:57
Speaker 3: I absolutely love that. There's a few things because I
37:00
Speaker 3: I run some high performance team sessions as well, and
37:02
Speaker 3: you know, taking some stuff from the military. Our member
37:05
Speaker 3: always being told you can never over communicate clarity, right, Yeah,
37:11
Speaker 3: that one there, and then the invite participation I often
37:14
Speaker 3: talk to teams about in meetings, just start off with
37:18
Speaker 3: using a talking stick where you put the agenda on
37:21
Speaker 3: the table and the talking stick goes around the table
37:24
Speaker 3: because you said exactly the same thing. Meetings are often
37:28
Speaker 3: dominated by extroverts, right, people like me who actually think
37:34
Speaker 3: while they're talking, right, And us extroverts talk a lot
37:38
Speaker 3: of horseshit sometimes, right, because we're formulating our thoughts while.
37:42
Speaker 2: We don't believe it.
37:43
Speaker 3: We just yeah, that's right. And the introverts take a
37:46
Speaker 3: bit more time and I'm you know, I'm kind of
37:49
Speaker 3: generalizing it, but takes more time to formulate their thoughts.
37:52
Speaker 3: And they often get shut down a minute or don't
37:55
Speaker 3: get a chance to participate. And that's why I love
37:59
Speaker 3: that talking stick, and particularly if you get an agenda item,
38:02
Speaker 3: a quick round the table right give a comment. You
38:05
Speaker 3: could say no comment on this and pass it on.
38:07
Speaker 3: But what happens then is you get a whole heap
38:09
Speaker 3: of different opinions before you start debate, rather than the
38:14
Speaker 3: dominant people just taking over. I think that's key, and
38:19
Speaker 3: then I think comment on your last one. Around debriefing,
38:23
Speaker 3: I never flew a single sortie where I didn't have
38:27
Speaker 3: a debrief afterwards, and I think it's something that is
38:31
Speaker 3: massively missing in business is around debriefing, and particularly the
38:36
Speaker 3: other thing I think from my time in the aircrew
38:38
Speaker 3: world is about learning from others' mistakes. So as an
38:42
Speaker 3: aircraft captain, I could not sign out that aircraft until
38:47
Speaker 3: I had read and signed all aircraft incidents that had
38:52
Speaker 3: happened right, And the whole idea was er crew didn't
38:55
Speaker 3: live very long at the start of it. I remember
38:57
Speaker 3: nine henle an Oh krusty instructor, telling us when he
39:01
Speaker 3: first graduated, he sealed They sealed an aircraft carrier from
39:05
Speaker 3: Singapore all the way to the to the far east
39:08
Speaker 3: tailand or somewhere like that. He said, by the time
39:10
Speaker 3: they got there, half of all the air crew were dead, right,
39:14
Speaker 3: because flying helicopters off ships very dangerous business, particularly back
39:20
Speaker 3: in those days. So that's when that culture started about
39:23
Speaker 3: learning from other people's mistakes. And I find in you
39:27
Speaker 3: have seen this, you know you've been at conference before.
39:29
Speaker 3: I'm sure where people stand up there and they talk
39:32
Speaker 3: about best practice, right, and here was a really great
39:36
Speaker 3: example of things going really well. Rah rah rah. I'm like,
39:39
Speaker 3: who's talking about the fuck ups? Who's getting up there
39:42
Speaker 3: and saying here's where this went massively wrong. Here's the
39:46
Speaker 3: learning lessons from all of this for everybody to sure.
39:50
Speaker 3: So yeah, man, I'm completely aligned with everything you said.
39:53
Speaker 3: There one question that senior SAS guy first name wasn't
39:57
Speaker 3: Harry or Rage? Was it?
39:59
Speaker 1: Oh?
39:59
Speaker 2: It's gon about twenty years ago?
40:00
Speaker 3: But no, I don't know. Okay, I know a couple
40:04
Speaker 3: of guys a me and mine, REDG. Crawford and Harry Moffett.
40:07
Speaker 2: Who No, No, I wasn't.
40:09
Speaker 3: It's not Harry.
40:10
Speaker 2: Quite well, some of are.
40:11
Speaker 3: Our circles had crossed. No, we are running a little
40:14
Speaker 3: bit out of time. But I do want to talk
40:16
Speaker 3: about performance under pressure, right, because you've had a wealth
40:20
Speaker 3: of experience working with both individuals and teams in that
40:25
Speaker 3: high performance stuff, both in elite sport and in business.
40:29
Speaker 3: So give us a few tips about that sustainable peak performance, right,
40:35
Speaker 3: because everybody can be a peak performer for a while,
40:38
Speaker 3: but you and me will have seen plenty of them burnout. Right,
40:42
Speaker 3: What can some people do to maintain that performance, sustainable
40:47
Speaker 3: peak performance with actually burning out? I think, and if
40:50
Speaker 3: you can solve this, you'll be a multi millionaire.
40:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'll probably take the word peak out,
40:55
Speaker 1: so I think it's sustainable performance.
40:57
Speaker 2: And then at certain points, yeah, you need to peak
41:00
Speaker 2: for an event, yeah, coaching or whatever. The framework I.
41:04
Speaker 1: Used I came up with I don't know about twelve
41:05
Speaker 1: fourteen years ago now, and we went and we looked.
41:08
Speaker 1: We went to look back on some of the research
41:10
Speaker 1: on burnout, and we were when we engaged by a
41:13
Speaker 1: ruthsby large organization. They had quite a good culture, but
41:16
Speaker 1: their issue was their performance management system. They said, it sucks,
41:20
Speaker 1: you know, it's just ridiculous. It's just a tick a
41:22
Speaker 1: box exercise. And they said, we really want to we
41:24
Speaker 1: want to turn our before like we just talked about
41:27
Speaker 1: a moment ago, we want to turn our performance cycle
41:29
Speaker 1: into something where people genuinely learn and grow and.
41:33
Speaker 2: We get better. Can you see what you can do
41:35
Speaker 2: something about it?
41:36
Speaker 1: So we just went back to square one and said,
41:38
Speaker 1: all right, well, if you're trying to design a performance system,
41:40
Speaker 1: what is your definition of performance? And we settled on
41:43
Speaker 1: four elements that have stuck for the last twelve years
41:46
Speaker 1: and we've em bettered this in I don't know, got
41:49
Speaker 1: half a dozen of Australia as universities and some of
41:51
Speaker 1: the banks and a variety of other places. The acronym
41:53
Speaker 1: is ADEPP achieved and it's achieved developing, enjoy partner. So
41:57
Speaker 1: you stop and reflect for a moment on betting. The
41:59
Speaker 1: best parts of your career, Paul, are times where you
42:02
Speaker 1: were achieving meaningful outcomes, you were developing and growing, you
42:07
Speaker 1: were enjoying, so there was lots of energy in and
42:11
Speaker 1: you had strong partnering and collegiate relationships with each other.
42:15
Speaker 1: High performance environment. So to me, that's your starting points.
42:18
Speaker 1: So pretty much every there's not too many people that
42:21
Speaker 1: escape me if I'm working with them, coaching them and
42:23
Speaker 1: so on. We just use that aid a framework. We
42:26
Speaker 1: set it up in ninety day cadence, and it's what
42:30
Speaker 1: does achievement look like for you in this next ninety days?
42:32
Speaker 1: What does development look like? What does enjoyment and energy
42:35
Speaker 1: look like? Tend to use energy more with more senior
42:38
Speaker 1: people because they'll kind of get the energy and energy
42:41
Speaker 1: out and then partner in critical partner and relationships.
42:44
Speaker 2: Then it's we debrief it.
42:45
Speaker 1: We'll do a check in every thirty days, how are
42:47
Speaker 1: you going? And we do a proper debrief and a reset,
42:50
Speaker 1: and it's a good one that you can then go.
42:52
Speaker 1: I don't expect in any ninety days that you're going
42:54
Speaker 1: to have each one of those four in balance, but
42:57
Speaker 1: if one of those is depleted over time, it's going
43:01
Speaker 1: to start to have an impact. If the energy isn't there,
43:04
Speaker 1: clearly we're going to run out of gas, We lose
43:06
Speaker 1: our creativity. If our development's not there, then we're going
43:10
Speaker 1: to stagnate. If the partner relationships there, we're going to
43:13
Speaker 1: start to get too isolated.
43:14
Speaker 2: Obviously, the achievement's the one that tends to be there.
43:17
Speaker 1: So I think that would be my very strong recommendation
43:20
Speaker 1: to people think about performance in those four elements achieve developing.
43:24
Speaker 1: Joy Partner put it into something like a ninety day cadence,
43:27
Speaker 1: and I think you'll find that can have quite a
43:29
Speaker 1: significant impact, and we use it a lot. We're getting
43:32
Speaker 1: leaders to coach their teams as well. It's a great
43:35
Speaker 1: little debrief for the team. Do an adep debrief for
43:38
Speaker 1: the last ninety days. What do we achieve, what do
43:40
Speaker 1: we develop, etc. Now, a couple of things where we
43:42
Speaker 1: didn't quite get there in each of those areas, where next?
43:45
Speaker 1: And you can build that cadence and that's the alignment
43:48
Speaker 1: that then builds the collaboration and the learning.
43:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Awesome stuff. I've
43:54
Speaker 3: loved everything about this conversation. It's been awesome. Can we
43:58
Speaker 3: send people if they want to read your books? You
44:00
Speaker 3: got a number of different books. But also if there's
44:03
Speaker 3: corporates here who want to book in to to come
44:06
Speaker 3: in and do some work with their teams. Where's the
44:08
Speaker 3: best place to go.
44:09
Speaker 1: Easiest place to fuyd me's either Graham Winter on LinkedIn
44:12
Speaker 1: or I think one Team dot com. But I think
44:15
Speaker 1: one Team dot com has got all of the sort
44:18
Speaker 1: of connections to books and so on. That's all I've
44:21
Speaker 1: got connection my most recent book, Talking for Turbulence, that's
44:24
Speaker 1: co author with Martin bean So. Martin's the vice chancellor
44:27
Speaker 1: at r MIT for for five or six years. So
44:30
Speaker 1: we wrote that alongside a bunch of other sort of
44:33
Speaker 1: cheap executives from around the country looking at operating in
44:36
Speaker 1: high turbulence environments. Now Kevin Sullivan, the Corners Pilot, one
44:39
Speaker 1: of those. So but yeah, they can they can sort
44:41
Speaker 1: of access resources there as well.
44:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. Cool, last question, what's next or what are you
44:45
Speaker 3: excited about?
44:47
Speaker 1: I'm trying to work out whether I'm gonna wing foil
44:51
Speaker 1: and this has got nothing to do with with with career. Yeah,
44:57
Speaker 1: I've just got to the point where I'm just about
44:58
Speaker 1: to work out how to get the wing for oil
45:00
Speaker 1: the work and this is a completely different experience.
45:03
Speaker 2: So what's this.
45:06
Speaker 1: Will you get a wing like a four to five
45:08
Speaker 1: to six meter blow up wing and then a board
45:12
Speaker 1: with a foil on the bottom and you put the
45:15
Speaker 1: two together with water and wind and I've got it.
45:18
Speaker 2: I've I've got a going but I want to I
45:21
Speaker 2: just think it's the coolest thing. So so that's for that,
45:24
Speaker 2: and then I mean the other stuff is I just
45:26
Speaker 2: I'm gonna love what I do.
45:27
Speaker 1: I enjoy the enjoy the stuff with clients, So I
45:29
Speaker 1: don't see that's that sort of shifting.
45:32
Speaker 2: I think as a good made of mine, Cetter, I
45:34
Speaker 2: played cricket few years ago.
45:36
Speaker 1: Mate, I fear retirement more than debt. I fear retirement
45:38
Speaker 1: more than debt.
45:40
Speaker 3: It is a very quick way to massively accelerate your
45:44
Speaker 3: cognitive retarget So yeah, keep doing what you're doing that
45:48
Speaker 3: awesome stuff.
45:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, but thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Love your work.
45:53
Speaker 1: I love your I love the way you combine the physical,
45:55
Speaker 1: the psychological, and the practical together, so I could I think.
45:58
Speaker 2: I think you're doing a great job.
46:00
Speaker 3: Thanks Grim. Cheers