With over 30 years of experience in high-tech sales and marketing, Kim Tofin shares insights on the critical roles in forming high-performing and high-impact teams.
Through personal stories and professional insights, Kim explains how creating a safe space for authenticity and unique contributions can transform organizational culture and drive unparalleled success.
Don't miss this in-depth discussion on fostering collaboration, bridging gaps, and unleashing the untapped potential within your teams!
Stay in Touch with Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-tofin-38b0846/
For more on Kim and his Services: https://breakoutcx.com/
Within a team dynamic, the weirdos, the one or two or the three can start to feel psychologically safe because everybody allows that weirdness.
Welcome to weirdos in the workplace. The podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today.
My name's Erin Patchell. And today I'm super happy to bring on Kim Tofin. Hello, Aaron. Nice to see you again. Nice to see you as always, Kim. So to introduce Kim, after 30 years in high tech sales and marketing, Kim began Breakout CX and has thrown himself extensively into the art and science of team coaching and team infused leadership, which I think is something that you coined.
Is that right, Kim? Yes. Yeah. Awesome. So now Kim works with national and international companies to develop high performing teams and introduce and build a teamship culture. And today we're going to talk about how curiosity and maybe even a little bit of weirdness can make teaming possible among some other things that we'll get into as well.
So nice to have you on the podcast finally, Kim. Yeah, finally, we got past the weirdo point. We got past the weirdness. Yeah. Um, I'd actually, let's, let's let, I want to ask you that question for sure, uh, because I think it's kind of, it's kind of cool, like the evolution of your thinking around the word weird.
Um, but I'd love for people to hear from your mouth, like what you do, who you are, just a few minutes about, um, what you care about, why you care about this so much. Yeah, that's a good question. It's a good place to start. I mean, I, as you said in the introduction, I worked with teams, uh, in my career for the part of three decades.
And, um, I've worked with good teams, not good teams and terrible teams. Um, but I didn't know about a teaming culture. I certainly didn't know about team coaching or a team ship. And along the way, I began to understand the importance of collaboration and it just stuck with me in every aspect of the work that I did.
And so this started to define me and I became sort of enamored with, um, with coaching as it began to emerge. And that was with leadership coaching. And it just has became, become a part of what I really Um, stand for it. In other words, we could say it's my stance of life, both personally and professionally.
It's amazing. So you've made it sort of a calling or it's become a calling for you. I did. And, and, you know, um, not to dwell on the matter, but I had a life changing event, uh, three years ago, my partner passed away. And it, and it just opened up an opportunity for me to, to reset, recalibrate my life and focus on what really matters to me and, and grab a hold of my passion and, uh, in a way, give back to, you know, my community, um, our country, um, and, and, you know, all the organizations, whether they're institutional, private, government, um, educational, not for profit, um, you know, It's just, I, I'm so committed to, um, sort of unleashing this potential around teamship and, and that's what I'm doing and I'll keep doing it, um, uh, even with people calling me weirdo.
Absolutely. And we're turning that word into, you know, that's the best thing you could possibly be as a weirdo. For the record. So, um, but yeah, there's no question that, um, something like that, like a life change in the death of a partner, you know, and I'm obviously I'm so sorry about that. Um, but there's no question that that changes the way that you think about things, right?
A traumatic situation like that, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you, you start to, um, you go, it's a choice, but I found myself going inward. And tapping into my presence, my core, my strengths, um, it's still a work in progress. Like I haven't got it all figured out, but I would rather be in that process than. either masking the grief or the healing or the pain, um, because it doesn't serve the teams that I coach very well if I'm not true to myself and authentic when I walk in those rooms or when I'm coaching a CEO one on one.
Um, it reminds me actually when you, when you just said that, uh, there was a quote from yesterday. I was in a grief and loss workshop, um, with an amazing coach from Ottawa, Dina, uh, Bell or La Roche. And there was a quote that she said, and I'm going to see, I'm just going to do a little search here because I want to say it.
Uh, we can't accompany our clients when we are where we ourselves dare not travel. Um, you know, yeah, in fact, I've come across that recently in the last few days and I think it's very powerful. Absolutely. Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. So today is all about team ship and specifically, you know, the power of curiosity, um, the The power of collaboration, the power of, uh, development, um, Tell me a little bit more about specifically the work that you do like what is teamship?
Sure. Um,
initially, um, you know, through all my training, my team coaching training, I was chasing down teams that were either dysfunctional or starting up. Or going through a lot of changes, a lot of, um, changes in personnel or changes in ownership and working with those teams became very clear to me that, that teams have such power and such potential.
That it's more than just the team, it's organizational impact. And so in the last year or so, I've sort of described myself as a systemic team coach. In other words, it's more than just the team. Of course it is the team and every team has a starting and ending point. No two teams are the same as if the same as no two individuals are the same.
Um, and so with that, um, teamship, this term started to evolve in my mind that teamship really should be at the same level as leadership. Um, but it's not and and so it the time is right. I think to introduce this concept now. Teamship itself is being, um, introduced and and exploited very positively by, uh, a handful of organizations, consulting firms in the U.
S. And in Europe. Um, and I think there's a couple in Canada, but it's still relatively new. Um, and I just coined this term. Um, Of teamship infused leadership because because leaders are are struggling today. You know, it's not working as it used to. And so my approach is to come in to the organization and and look at what we can do with the organizational health.
Um, through empowering, uh, teams and getting teams moving from fundamental to high performing and ideally to high impact. So it strikes me that, you know, your background in sales and marketing probably has a lot to do with the way that you think about business in general, and then how, how the team itself can be impactful.
Would you say that's accurate? Yeah. It's, it's an interesting, It's an interesting statement and question. I think, I think we are all kind of salespeople. We're all trying to, to, um, promote or push or sell our, our value, our brand, our ideas, our thoughts. Um, so, so I think that in sales and marketing and how we position those, those, um, services or deliverables, um, yeah, has given me a lot of insights into the real fast movement of organizational dynamics, because everything happens around revenue in the private sector, but it's equally, it happens around government, for example, in, in service delivery.
Thank you. Or not for profit in stakeholder value education as in education for the students, et cetera. So, um, and in sales and marketing, there are a lot of teams because you're working directly or indirectly with all kinds of teams, operational teams, customer experience, teams, um, R and D teams, engineering development teams.
And, and in my experience, most of that were, you know, those teams were all working in silos. There was very little cross functional, um, value or benefits happening. And, um, the leaders weren't, you know, they weren't paying attention. And so it's, uh, yeah, it, it, it weighs heavily on me and it's great to draw from all those experiences.
And I'm actually quite happy that I worked with incredibly, incredibly successful companies, um, and not so successful companies because I know what doesn't work. Right. Yeah. And it's good to draw from that. For sure. I feel like we're kind of leading, you're leading me down a path here that I like, which is towards the The conversation around weirdness, you know, especially, um, you know, when we start to talk about strengths based teaming, uh, or collaboration or breaking down silos, part of me says, you know, well, the authenticity, you know, and having, having different people on a team, having a, um, a cross functional team, uh, makes a lot of sense, you know, and you can't have a cross functional team without a little bit of weirdness and authenticity.
Um, tell me, tell, tell everyone, like, if you're comfortable sharing the story about like when I first approached you as a podcast, you know, weirdos in the workplace is definitely there's reasons why we decided to call it weirdos in the workplace, right? Because it does rub people the wrong way a little bit.
And, and tell me a little bit about your evolution in like the last, you know, while, you know, as, as that's been kind of evolving. It's a great story. And I'm, um, I've come out the other end of it in a, in a much more informed, um, content, uh, sort of, you know, situation. Um, as you pointed out, to be a weirdo or to be claimed or called a weirdo was a little bit uncomfortable, but that's also a generational interpretation or definition.
Um, and, and I, I couldn't sort of get past that. Um, then. In my desire to come on this podcast. I thought, well, I've got to, I've got to work through this. So in one of my team coaching sessions, I actually, uh, used the question. What is a weirdo to you and how important is it to be used or not to be used in this particular team?
And it was a check in. It was expected to be, you know, several minutes in a team of seven people. And, and four of the team were under 30 and three of the team were over 55. So there was a big gap in the middle. Um, the conversation went on for 40 minutes. And this is what I love about team coaching is that you go to where the conversation needs to be.
And just the, the very topic of weirdos in the workplace. just opened up such enriched and textured dialogue between not just between the two age groups but amongst everybody in the team and everybody had a different perspective of what a weirdo was and it settled down into Someone who's bold, someone who's creative, someone who's not, you know, on the beaten path, um, you know, some, some, someone that can potentially drive change and, and then it morphed into, and then I, I sort of facilitated this conversation a little bit that within a team dynamic, um, the weirdos, the one or two or the three can start to feel psychologically safe because everybody allows that weirdness.
to unfold. And suddenly this is where the magic of a team starts to appear. So it's just a wonderful story. And, um, yeah, I think, I think it's the absolute right name for the podcast. I absolutely love that you did that, that you actually went out and kind of workshopped it almost. Yeah. Yeah. I was, it was for selfish reasons, but it, it now is, is part of my routine, right?
Because I, I think it, It really helps move the psychological safety bar, right. And the thing is, like, why are we why are we sometimes resistant to words, and I'm the same right there are certain words, but I'm like, it's a struggle for me to feel like I'm that could be part of my identity. But I think the same thing happens if you, you know, maybe you're taking a personality assessment or something and it tells you, Oh, this is, you know, this is your result.
This is who you are, you know, and you're looking at it going, I don't think I'm that person. And it rubs you a little bit, right. But it's, it's processing that and opening yourself up to that possibility. That really, um, helps us develop into. like a new identity, right? Uh, or broadens our identity or makes us more agile or adaptive.
So, um, yeah, I'm amazed that you did that work. That's so brilliant. Oh, thank you. And you mentioned, you know, the assessments and, you know, we, whether it's something very simple, you know, Myers Briggs or whatever, you know, there's a month there, but, um, I find that doing individual personal assessments In a team coaching environment, um, does set up some risks because people do exactly what you said.
They get attached to their own identity and really the secret of a, of a well performing team is that it's about the dance. It's not about the dancers and we don't care what orientation the dancers are. We don't care what ethnicity they are or whatever. It really doesn't matter. We're only focused primarily now there's growth individually, of course, but we're focused on the dance.
And how is the dance going to look? in front of the audience or the stakeholders. And, and so we, we, sometimes we have to, I find that we have to spend time in, in team coaching sessions to get those individual assessments on the table and put them through the shredder. Yeah. Sometimes get sort of going in that collective energy.
Yeah. I mean, if you're getting, if you're like, I'm a yellow and You have a really rigid, you know, idea of that. That's not promoting the kind of flexible mindset that we need in a team. Yeah. Right. We need a flexible mindset. Um, would you say how, how does team ship and how would team ship in a flexible mindset?
How, how, how do you help develop that? Well, I guess, you know, it's, it's a good question. There are a lot of approaches, but I think what I can do is distill down. This is that in a, in a team coaching environment. In the beginning stages. There's more facilitation on the team from the team coach. We're putting together the structure where I'm helping them pull together their charter, their working agreement, and um, so that there's buy in, there's sign in, but everything is flexible.
And so no matter What are the stages that we initially set up? I mean, I lay out a template and sort of a shell and I populate it, but it's, it's for them to deconstruct and rebuild it for themselves because they need to own it so that that flexibility, which then brings in trust and psychological safety and candor and all those things start to play all those dynamics start to happen when.
They are now in ownership. Um, and yet, um, I'm not just sitting back watching. You know, I'm holding their feet to the fire on accountability. Like they have a charter, they have a working agreement and I won't call them out, but I won't tell them what's wrong is that I will tell them, I think we might be in breach of what you, what the team has agreed to.
Is it just me or, or how does the rest of the team. Do you that I should just sidebar that to say that, you know, in team coaching, there's both team coaching sessions where we're working on, uh, development issues and going through their, their development stages. There's success traits, et cetera, but there's also live action coaching.
where under very tight NDAs, I'm just a fly in the wall, and we agree upon how I will interact, if at all. But, but that's very, very powerful, because you witness them, and I'm observing them in, in their, in their usual active meetings, right? And they're going through their tasks and everything like that.
And it's, it's a good test to see how they're taking how, you know, the same dynamics. And bringing them into their, their day job or into what their team is expected to do. And what are the objectives and what are the tasks? Hmm. Very interesting. Do you find that they bring their best selves to those sessions when you're watching?
Or do they kind of like, are you like the, the furniture after a while? You know, it, it's, It's always different and it depends on the issue. And of course, in the beginning, everybody's all suited up, but it only takes one spark and, and then I'm, I'm invisible. Um, and, and I really try to let that go.
Sometimes, You'll see everybody, what's the team coach think right now? Because they're already sensing there's a, there's that dynamic tensions, but you don't need me. You already sense it. So what, what's going on? What do you feel? Is it, is it uncomfortable? Do you feel stressed? Has your heart rate gone up?
Let's talk about it. Yep. Red flags, red flags. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So teamship. A teamship culture. I'm curious about that. And also high impact team. Um, and I know these things go hand in hand. You probably don't have a high impact team without a team culture, a teamship culture rather. Um, what, can you paint us a picture?
So what, what is a team sh a high impact team? What do they look and feel and sound and smell like? Yeah. Okay. So maybe not the smell. And it's a good way to frame the question, Aaron, because, you know, we touched on the stages of team development. Um, a high impact team is really at the second to last stage.
Now the last stage being The, the team coachings program is really complete and we recalibrate, we reset, we team out. Um, but if we're dealing or if we've developed or we've evolved into a teamship culture, then we're going to look at that and, and see how we can raise the bar within the whole organization.
So a high impact team. You know, within my definition and use of the term is a team that has gone beyond high performing. This team has become a catalyst there. Um, they're creating a ripple effect. Of all of the dynamics of what, you know, radical collaboration can do the organization and they're driving change.
They're, they're incubating a lot of other, um, you know, either teams, they're influencing teams, or they've got a lot of people that now want to be on a team because just through osmosis. people in the organization, they want to be a part of that positive movement. So that's a high impact team. Now, is it a rites of passage or a milestone that one goes from one to the other?
No, it's not like that. But, um, it's a, it's, it's more of a horizon that, you know, we can, the team can aspire to reach. So that's what a high impact team can really do. This notion, it sounds like it's something that kind of goes viral. Like people are noticing, um, they're, you know, there's a positivity, there's, um, an impact, there's an influence, and there's obviously like a high performing aspect of it, I'm sure as well.
Yeah, it can be viral. It's, it all depends on, well, depends on a lot of things, but I'll, I'll focus on it depends on leadership, right? Leadership has bought in, or maybe leadership is still at that experimental stage. You know, they don't really have a team trip culture. They're not totally into it, but.
They're willing to give it a go because they know that it's work is not working to the level they want it. The organizational health is substandard. And, and so if they're supporting it, then, um, they will remove the barriers to whatever's happening and, and then begin to see or witness for the first time what real corporate culture can be and, and how it grows organically.
And so, you know, your, your term of viral, you know, is. can be actually very, very true. In some cases, there's skepticism and, and people are like, you know, what, what are they drinking? Like, what are they putting in their coffee? You know, they're all so excited and hyped up. You know, we see them through the fishbowl boardroom and, and they're kind of going, Oh, you know, but, but because they haven't really experienced it yet.
So it all depends on really the team lead, which is really the liaison between leadership and the organization and the team. And how they want to, um, exploit that energy. Right. Um, and I'm, I'm going to make it probably clear for everyone, like, it sounds like the description, you know, the excitement and everything sounds like very extroverted energy, but I think that doesn't matter what kind of personality style you have.
You can be part of a team within a teamship culture that has that kind of energy. Is that true? Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and it's also in resolve. Because at the end of the day, um, you know, every conversation I have in the early stages with the sponsors and the and the stakeholders or the executive leadership, it's all about, um, you know, um, performance results, growth, um, You know, so we're not losing sight of the fact that if it's a, if it's a private company, it's about profit and return shareholder value and these kinds of things.
So, so in buried in that performance. Uh, those KPIs are showing that the, the M& A initiative or the new product release happened amazingly quickly and amazingly effective. And so while people are still kind of looking normal, you know, they're not, you know, they're not bouncing off the ceiling. People are looking at just what's going on within the organization.
They're looking at results and that, you know, certainly not just private sector firms, but in all types of organizations, results matter. Yes, they do. And this is the main driver, uh, uh, and outcome of effective teams, right? So, so this is also part of the, of the ripple effect is that we've got, we've got things happening in this organization.
And people are are happy about it. And people are saying like, Oh, God, yeah, that's, you know, I, I'm not going to work more than 40 hours. They want to work an extra few hours to finish this and drive this home. And then, you know, you hope that the organization says, you know, that was really good. Okay, so let's everybody take, take the Friday off everybody on this team.
That's good. Like we, we beat this timeline by a month. Right. Yeah. Yep. Um, and right now I don't think any company can afford to, you know, to be complacent. I would say, um, teaming is going to be especially important, putting together strong teams, knowing how to manage strong teams, support strong teams and build that culture.
Um, because, you know, the better. We, we can do a lot more together than we can separately for sure. Um, and there's so much context to know now, like, Oh my gosh, you know, try doing anything without consulting the others, like all of, all of your stakeholders, right. Um, so expensive to go in the wrong direction.
Well, it is. And these interventions, while they're still always going to be important, like consulting and advising and training, you know, we need all that. But what's happening is that those initiatives are not connecting to organizational health or success. They're there under contract. They're in, they're out.
They're important. They're important at a certain points in time. But if you have a team ship culture, which is cloaked, not only the executive in the boardroom, but all the whole organization, then teams, the power of teams now are connected inherently to the organization. And so the outcomes, the positive outcomes, the performance, the effectiveness.
Is now capacity and, and it's, it's part of the organization. And I think this is where, um, you know, I'll make this bold statement. You know, I think that generally, there are certainly are a lot of exceptions. There are some really, really progressive firms, organizations in Canada, but generally, for whatever reason, we're, we're kind of behind embracing team ship.
In compared to the US and the UK and other European countries. No, I mean, I have some suspicions why that is, but, um, we need to embrace that. And we need to do this right now because it's, it's an investment and it doesn't mean we have to go hire more people. It doesn't mean we need to engage expensive consultants.
We need to identify and, um, unleash the potential in our own organizations. And, um, those people that we've identified as well, they, they don't seem to participate. They're always quiet. They, you know, we don't hear for those people. You bring those people into a safe, powerful, engaged team environment. And, and it happens often that within.
months, those sort of disengaged people are deriving the agenda of the team. They just emerged. It's, and it's, this is what is inspiring for me to see this, um, transcendence. Um, and, and the, and the people who are typically sucking all the oxygen out of the teams are now kind of like, Oh, yeah. Okay. I guess I got to do things differently now.
Yeah, there's balance in the team. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. So, um, let's see, how do we want to wrap things up here? Um, I mean, obviously with that, I was going to say, Aaron, you, you did ask another question about like teamship in general and, and how does it sort of mesh into leadership? And I, I wanted to just touch on that and maybe this is a good way to sort of, um, bring it all together.
And yeah, we look at, you know, the success of leaders is distinguished by their, their leadership skills. Acumen, uh, and commitments to, uh, you know, people, power, organizational health and stakeholder value. Well, it's the same thing with teams. The effective effectiveness of a team is exemplified by the team ship operative framework.
And it's, it's also, um, exemplified by the collaboration, rigor and the systemic co elevation, um, in pursuit of, um, results around a unified or, uh, aligned purpose. So when you, when you look at teamship and leadership in that same context, You see that they belong together. They really, they really need each other.
And I think today they need each other more than ever. And, and I think this is where the, you know, the understanding has to sort of come into play from leaders because they need to, they need to realize that Uh, a teamship culture is absolutely necessary in, in all organizations right now. Yeah. So I talked to a lot of leaders and especially leaders who are looking to improve their teams, although we don't do the kind of work you do, Kim.
And I find that leaders don't have a very good or very strong language around leadership, period, just leadership. Yeah. Um, I think teamship is like another layer, right? Uh, how do you find, is like the, do you find the leaders that you're talking to have any kind of common language around teamship? Um, well, it's, it's, um, If they do, they've already got high performing teams.
They understand that. And so you're coming in to take them to the next level or they've slid off the road and you're trying to bring them back for different reasons. Um, I think a lot of it is the discussion centers around organizational health. What's the state of the organization, you know, um, and I'm saying that generally, cause it doesn't matter whether they're private institution or whatever the, the leader, um, needs to recognize that.
And if you're having an initial conversation, they probably are looking for something to make a difference, something to help them move the bar, but they don't really know, know what. And they've heard all the, you know, they've heard the pitches before and they, you know, they've heard all the leadership training and the workshops and, and all the kinds of things they've heard about team building.
They've heard about, you know, team dynamics and teaming, and they send people off to a weekend retreat and they climb a. A wall and they fall down and people catch them and now there's trust, right? Well, okay, well we check that box off. Um, and when you have a candid conversation with them about collaboration, about a holistic approach to working together, um, and dealing with conflict, dealing with, um, decision making, and breaking down, now I know this is another cliche, but breaking down silos, Or, you know, getting past groupthink.
Um, you know, if, if you have the conversation so that you're not pointing it to them, but, but they're kind of acknowledging that, yeah, these are issues, but I have no idea how to address this. I know why this is a problem. I know what I have to do, but the common question is, well, I just don't know how to do it.
And there, that's a, that's a place to start a conversation, a rich conversation around the potential of teams. Um, team ship and of course it requires and and there's statistics and reports and research done that the best highest performing teams are coached. That's, that's pretty, pretty known today. Um, certainly in the UK.
And, and so, um, systemic team coaching is important, um, but it's an investment and it's long term. You know, we're not searching for fixes. We're searching for capacity, building, um, empowerment. Absolutely. So you need a healthy business model probably before you're engaging in team coaching.
Well, and what would a healthy business model be one that's, you know, profitable, profitable or delivering services and, and, and benefit to your stakeholders. It could be that you don't have a profitable or healthy business model because you don't have trust in your teams or you don't have a collaborative mindset.
Um, so. So I would, I would say, no, it's, it's not a criteria. I think the discussion can happen, um, because of that. Okay. All right. So, um, so that's, that's very good. That's very interesting. Okay. Uh, so worth talking about, worth reaching out to Kim, if you have teams who need support, um, organizations that, you know, you're doing some investigation on what the root causes is, because maybe it's your teams.
Yeah. If there's some issues. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and it's, and if you're really just, the discussion can be around, how do I get the best out of my people? You know, there's a big aspect around, you know, people power, you know, EQ, for example, you know, a lot of organizations, traditional organizations will still call this soft skills performing, you know, high performing teams.
inherently develop the EQ of their people. So, so leaders are saying, well, I know I got to do this. I have to retain my people. I have to make them feel more psychological safety. I've got to focus more on DEI, but I don't know how to do that. And I, I give my, give those problems to HR and they just bring some consultants in and, but some of them really know what they're doing, but I don't, I don't want to.
bash the HR departments, but, but that's not their wheelhouse. And so the leaders are going like, I just don't know what to do. And so, um, the conversation has to be around, what are we doing with the team? Um, and, and we're using, we're tapping into, and we're, we're uncovering this. Enormous potential that it already exists in the company of how to meet the requirements, the objectives, and the goals of, of the organization.
And maybe we need to actually design some cross functional teams within the organization to better execute upon those goals. I mean, that could be a great conversation in itself. And, and many teams that I coach, I spend the first several weeks. In the first phase, which is called alignment or designing or direction, um, talking with sponsors and stakeholders around.
So how do we, how do we build your team? And then who's on the team? And do the teams want to be coached? And, you know, And does this make sense? Um, um, and if you've had teams before, are they working groups? Are they pseudo teams and let's tear that apart and let's look at what might make sense, um, and let's experiment.
So it's not always about, Oh, there's a team. It has a tail and a nose. Let's go coach it. Yes. It could be an organization with the wheels coming off and a teaming mindset could make the difference between success and prolonged agony, you know, towards failure. I think the thing that I love about this the most, or not the most, the thing that I love about maybe the most is the fact that it's such a tangible outcome.
Right. It's the kind of thing that you can say, you know, let's just try it and see how it works for six months. I don't have to, you know, it's not like a hope and dream, right? It's not like, oh, let's, you know, spend money on this, this program. And, um, The, the results are so intangible that they're impossible to measure, right?
With, with teaming, uh, literally in six months, you should be seeing some results. Your team should be happier, more motivated, more productive. Like there's so many tangible outcomes of what you do. And, you know, at a, at an individual level, that's the other thing with teams. Even though, as I said earlier, we're focused on the dance, not the dancers.
But the members, the individual people are growing. They're learning how to, um, associate and coalesce and relate. With other people, that's a, that's a, that's a life skill, right? It's it, so they take this away and this starts to sort of spill out into, you know, into the pizza parlors and the pubs after work, right?
I mean, it's like, wow, you've changed. Like I heard that so much, like. You know, person A has really changed, and person B, I've never heard that person talk so much. And, and so, they, the confidence starts to build up. And, and so if, if nothing else, I mean, and maybe the team starts out as a core fundamental team, barely just past working group, but they do have a compelling reason to do it.
To get together to form a team and maybe they only go to a certain level, um, because they're highly functional and, and, you know, they're, they're not in decision making, a decision making capacity, and they can only influence the direction of the organization so much. They'll never become a high impact team, but they will have strong influence.
On the organization and and so you, you know, the team coach serves that purpose of 6 to 12 to 18 months, but then the team coach withdraws and I, you know, I, or the team coach does not need to come back every time there's a problem. A wheel falls off because now the team is empowered. They have their own charter, their working agreement, they're empowered.
They can now drive this through the organization. I don't want to be a consultant. I have consulted and I hate it when I got to be called back into, you know, rinse and repeat of something that they should have known they should have built the capacity to resolve themselves. But it's much easier to just bring in the consultants again.
Yeah, it is sometimes. It is sometimes. It is sometimes. Oh boy, Kim, thank you so much for the amazing conversation around this. It's really interesting. Uh, it's so deep though. I feel like there's so many layers that it's almost impossible to be able to just, you know, it's, it's so broad. It's really hard to focus on like, you know, one specific aspect of it, but I think we did okay.
I think we did. I think you're Um, you're right. I mean, it is, it is very complex. It's messy. Uh, yeah, we didn't get into cross functionality. We didn't get, like, there's so many, so many layers, you know, there's, um, I think you, you pulled out a lot of really good themes to discuss and I thank you for that.
And I'm really appreciative of, uh, You know, the opportunity to come onto your podcast and just share some ideas. Honestly, come back anytime you want. Maybe next season we'll have you back again. If you want. Absolutely. What you're up to. Yeah. Absolutely. We'd love it. Awesome. Thank you very much, sir. Weirdo.
I'm good. You're going to get a t shirt.
