Greetings, beautiful humans! I’m your host Erin Patchell, and this is Weirdos in the Workplace where we discuss how transparency, authenticity, passion and purpose create more visionary organizations. And welcome to today's episode on creating high performing teams. Whether your team is virtual, flexible or totally on site, the world of work is more chaotic than ever. One thing that can give you some stability is building a strong and reliable team that gets shit done.
If you’re a business owner or leader, it’s probably something you think about a lot. So, let’s talk about it today. Stay tuned.
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Once upon a time, in a quaint little village, there existed a small farm known as Harmony Acres. The farm had a varied assortment of animals, each unique in their own right: a wise old owl named Olivia, a strong bull named Brutus, a fast rabbit named Remy, and a resourceful beaver named Benny. Harmony Acres was in a dire situation, as their land had become barren and crops no longer flourished. The village council had given them one season to turn things around or else the farm would be shut down.
One evening, Olivia called a meeting. "Friends, we've got to solve the problem of our barren land and dying crops. The survival of Harmony Acres depends on it."
Brutus, the bull, was the first to speak. "Let's plow the entire field with all our strength! Rip it apart and start afresh!"
Remy, the rabbit, was skeptical. "That sounds like a lot of work and it could make things worse. Maybe we can find seeds that grow faster, so we can harvest sooner."
Benny, the beaver, shook his head. "Neither will work if we don't understand why the soil is barren in the first place. We need to test the water and soil to find out what’s wrong."
Olivia, synthesizing everyone's input, said, "All excellent ideas, but we have to act in a coordinated manner."
First, they took Benny's suggestion. They tested the soil and water, discovering that the water source was polluted. Benny built a filtration system to clean the water. The owl, being wise and resourceful, helped by finding materials that would be needed for the filter.
Next, they took Brutus' idea and plowed the field but with care and precision, avoiding any unnecessary damage. Brutus used his strength, guided by the wisdom of Olivia, who oversaw the process, ensuring that it was carried out with precision.
Finally, they planted seeds that Remy had found—seeds that were not only quick to grow but also compatible with their soil type. Remy used his speed to disperse the seeds evenly across the field.
As they worked through each stage, conflicts and disagreements inevitably arose. Brutus was impatient and wanted to see results quickly, while Benny insisted on double-checking everything. Remy was anxious and always on the move, while Olivia was slow and methodical.
But as they ran into challenges—broken equipment, a shortage of materials, disagreements on methods—they started seeing these not as obstacles but as opportunities to learn from each other's unique strengths and perspectives. Olivia summarized their learnings and helped them remember the bigger picture. Benny was resourceful in fixing broken equipment. Brutus provided the strength to move heavy materials. And Remy kept everyone's spirits up, always hopeful and optimistic.
The season passed, and the day of judgment arrived. The village council visited Harmony Acres, only to find lush, blooming crops and a rejuvenated farm.
"It's a miracle," declared the village chief. "How did you all accomplish this?"
Olivia, standing tall, looked at her diverse team of friends and said, "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."
From that day on, the animals of Harmony Acres never looked at challenges the same way. They saw them as stepping stones on the path to success, as integral parts of their journey in mastering the art of collaboration. And Harmony Acres, nourished by the collective skills and spirit of its diverse residents, flourished like never before.
And so, they all lived productively ever after.
Friedrich Nietzsche in his Twilight of the Idols said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger."
It’s while donning this mental armour that I think about complementary teams.
Nietzsche’s words, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” describes the transformative power of obstacles. There are few opportunities better to learn than building a truly diverse team of individuals created from different cultural contexts, personalities, energy levels, skills and capacities.
Forming a team of individuals who have exactly the same goals, priorities, philosophies, values and balance of skills is nearly a fantasy. People are rarely that unified and it takes time for the rough edges to smooth out and synergy to take place. A team always needs to have some creative conflict to reach their own personal potential and to innovate together. If a team has settled into a friction-free rhythm, it might be time to shake things up a little bit.
The psychology behind personal growth when faced with challenges is not just a motivational poster. When confronted with obstacles, we can respond in various ways, and not all of them are constructive. Viewing something as a threat versus a challenge, changes everything. The words you tell yourself are important. The relatively simple act of reframing our language can move something from an insurmountable issue to one that can be overcome, learned from, or even leveraged for advantage.
The initial perception of an obstacle, whether as a threat or a challenge, sets the tone for how we engage with it—both mentally and behaviorally. If we perceive an obstacle as a threat, our bodies go into a fight-or-flight mode. Our stress hormones spike, our thinking narrows, and we’re more likely to make impulsive decisions, all of which can be counterproductive in the modern landscape of complex problems.
On the other hand, viewing an obstacle as a challenge shifts the narrative. When we interpret something as a challenge, it elicits a different physiological and psychological response. We’re more focused, more engaged, and more open to creative problem-solving. We approach it with the intention of mastering it, of learning from it, and possibly even benefiting from it. The stress we feel becomes a positive stress known as “eustress”, which is well researched as motivating and performance-enhancing.
The language we use is a powerful tool in this reframing process. Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is considered a pseudoscience, but if you consider the impact of Tony Robbins on the world - or maybe this is something you’ve experienced yourself personally - words absolutely have power and the way we think affects our physiology and our behaviour. The words you choose to describe your experience will affect how you react to it. If I can’t see an immediate solution and I say “this is impossible”, I would have a very different outcome than if I took a deep breath and said “this is hard but we’ll figure it out.”
It’s with the latter mindset that we want to enter the team space. “This is hard, but we’ll figure it out.”
What if we start by reframing our idea of what a team can be? What if a team is not just a functional unit, but a dynamic ecosystem of diverse skills, backgrounds, and personalities? What if the challenges that naturally arise within teams are not threats to productivity, but opportunities for individual and collective growth?
When we shift our perspective in this manner, we start seeing the "obstacles" in team dynamics—conflicts, differences in working styles, cultural contexts, gaps in skill sets—not as problems to be smoothed over as quickly as possible, but as vital touchpoints for learning, adaptation, and innovation. We create an environment where challenges are welcomed, not feared; a culture that understands that the road to high performance is paved with many small, but enriching, challenges.
This isn’t science fiction. I’ve been lucky to be a part of complementary teams that had a collective growth mindset, comradery and grit, and boy were we able to move mountains. I’ve experienced first hand how the group can be greater than the sum of its parts.
I do think building a team is more art than science. It’s highly intuitive and a process of personal development and team development. The real essence of a team lies in synergy, in the alchemy that occurs when diverse skill sets and personalities come together with a group mission that is more important than individual glory.
People ask me if I use a particular model, and I don’t. Personally, I believe that most team development models have value. I prescribe to a design thinking philosophy, and this is often characterized by the desire to gather useful tools. Design thinking uses a framework of five steps - empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test - and the more tools you have to support each of these areas, the more you can tailor every project for the best possible outcome.
Empathy: Design thinking starts with understanding the user, and in the context of team-building, the "users" are your team members. Learning what drives them, what their challenges are, and how they prefer to work can create a team that is more sensitive to each other’s needs and strengths so they can perform at their highest level..
Defining the Problem: Just as in design thinking where you define the problem you're solving for, you can define the team's objectives clearly. What is the purpose of the team? What are we trying to achieve? This sets a direction that everyone can align with, understand and contextualize..
Ideation: In design thinking, you generate as many ideas as possible in the ideation stage. Similarly, for team building, encouraging open brainstorming can not only solve problems but also make everyone feel invested in the team’s mission and objectives.
Prototyping: Before implementing a full-scale solution, design thinking advocates for prototyping to test assumptions. In a team, this could mean testing out different team structures, communication tools, or workflow processes on a small scale before rolling them out to the entire team.
Feedback Loops: Design thinking is iterative, relying heavily on user feedback to refine the design. Teams can adopt this approach by regularly soliciting feedback about team dynamics, workloads, and processes to make incremental improvements.
Design thinking inherently values multidisciplinary teams and collective decision-making. These principles can be translated to team-building by valuing each member’s unique skills and perspectives, aiming for a culture of collaboration rather than hierarchy.
In design thinking, success metrics are often based on user satisfaction. Similarly, team performance metrics could be centered around team satisfaction, fulfillment, and well-being, not just output.
Flexibility and Adaptability: One of the main tenets of design thinking is the willingness to pivot when something isn't working. That can be a valuable lesson for teams who must often adapt quickly to new information or circumstances.
To build your contextual understanding of team development, there are some useful models - Tuckman’s phases of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning, help us understand that conflict and dissonance are normal stages you’ll go through while assembling a team.
There are no perfect models or frameworks because life is more messy and beautiful than that. But each of them helps us understand something in order to give us some clarity and sense of normalcy within that messiness. There are so many models - the Katzenbach and Smith Model, the LaFasto and Larson Model, the T7 Model of Team Effectiveness, the Hackman Model, the Lencioni Model.
These additional models offer different lenses through which to examine team psychology, helping us to understand the many facets of team dynamics, roles, and effectiveness.
Albert Einstein once said, "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." He also said, ““The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” These quotes describe well the importance of looking beyond technical skills when building a team. While intelligence alone can solve complex problems, it is that harmony of personality styles that help us decide what we should do and why we should do it - together. And at least for while longer yet, I think, this is something that machines can’t do. Only humans are capable of the empathy and grit needed to navigate complex team dynamics.
The american entrepreneur and politician Malcolm Forbes, whose father founded Forbes Magazine, put it perfectly: "Diversity: the art of thinking independently together." Indeed, diversity isn't just about ethnic backgrounds, genders, or ages; it also applies to the skill sets within your team. In the ever-changing landscape of the business world, it's critical to have a variety of skill sets that can adapt and respond to various challenges. This doesn't mean that everyone on your team needs to be a polymath, but rather that the collective skills of the team should form a complete, well-rounded unit.
Have you heard of the "T-shaped" skill model? In this model, the vertical bar of the 'T' represents the depth of skills and expertise in a single field, while the horizontal bar represents the breadth of soft skills and the ability to collaborate across disciplines. A T-shaped individual is both a specialist and a generalist. They have a deep understanding of a particular area but also have the skills necessary to collaborate with experts from other fields.
When assembling a team, think of creating a "T-shaped skills matrix" where you plot the team's skills in both dimensions—depth and breadth. This will enable you to visualize gaps and identify what types of new team members you might need to seek.
There are so many do’s and don’t’s when it comes to leading, managing and developing a high performing team but I’ll boil them down:
Do - treat them as human adults, capable of independent thought and decision-making.
Don't - micromanage or infantilize them, undermining their autonomy and confidence.
Do - set clear expectations and achievable goals to guide your team's efforts.
Don't - set ambiguous, vague, or unrealistic targets that leave them feeling lost or demotivated.
Do - communicate openly, honestly, and consistently to keep everyone on the same page.
Don't - withhold crucial information or give mixed messages that lead to confusion and mistrust.
Do - recognize and celebrate individual and team achievements to boost morale and motivation.
Don't - focus solely on what went wrong, without acknowledging what went right.
Do - foster a culture of mutual respect, where every voice is heard and valued.
Don't - tolerate bullying, harassment, or discrimination of any kind within your team.
Do - invest in your team's development through training, mentorship, and opportunities for growth.
Don't - neglect their professional needs, leading to stagnation and disengagement.
Do - be flexible and adaptable in your leadership style to meet the needs of your diverse team.
Don't - be rigid or inflexible, unable to adjust your approach to changing circumstances or individual needs.
Do - encourage collaboration and open dialogue, allowing for a free exchange of ideas.
Don't - stifle creativity or shut down conversations that could lead to innovative solutions.
Do - lead by example, embodying the values and work ethic you wish to see in your team.
Don't - say one thing and do another, as inconsistency will erode your credibility.
Do - create opportunities for team bonding and building social capital.
Don't - isolate team members or create an environment where cliques and factions can thrive.
In the words of Mike Rutherford from the band Genesis, "Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration."
I hope this episode has inspired you to get the band together and give this type of teaming a try. Especially if you’re interested in creating something from nothing, creating a complementary team might be your best shot.
That’s all for today. Until next week, stay weird, stay wonderful and remember, don’t stay out of trouble.
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“Going Deeper” book recommendations:
"Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel H. Pink - This book explores what truly motivates us, including in the workplace.
"Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts." by Brené Brown - This book offers leadership wisdom that applies to all kinds of teams.
"Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don’t" by Jim Collins - Offers an examination of what it takes to make a great company, often focusing on team composition and leadership.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman - Understanding how we think can make us better team members and leaders.
"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni - A look at what commonly goes wrong in teams and how to avoid it.
"The Art of Possibility" by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander - Focuses on the transformative power of perspective, which you touch on in your podcast.
"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking" by Susan Cain - For teams to work well, we need to understand and value the introverts among us.
"Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World" by General Stanley McChrystal - Explores how a military unit transformed its structure and culture to adapt to a new era.
"The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff - This book uses the characters from Winnie the Pooh to explain the principles of Taoism. It's a gentle way to explore the idea of 'going with the flow' and can be especially useful for leaders needing to manage complex team dynamics.
