Award Winning Research
Our Applied Research Collective Delivers Critical Insights To Accelerate And Elevate Business Results
Hiding In Plain Sight: The Dangerous Leader
Before we dive into this research article, I feel it necessary to point out the obvious. We partner with leaders and their teams to accelerate and elevate results, while making it more joyful and fun for them to go further, faster. While there are teams that we work with that are well behind the performance curve and we’re helping them achieve their full potential, the majority of the organizations we partner with are performing at an average, or above average level, seeking to level up or even achieve exponential results. All of that said, this article addresses a very specific kind of leader and their behavior, along with how it impacts individuals, teams, organizational outcomes, the broader community, and society, too. For reasons that shall become clear as we get into this critical topic, we’re exploring the phenomenon of toxic leadership and the impact this has on our world.
The Tragedy of the Commons: Navigating Team Dynamics
In 1968, economist Garrett Hardin introduced a concept in the environmental space that looked at the depletion of shared resources when individuals act in their self-interest. What we know today, after years of research in this critical space, is that this notion extends beyond environmental concerns, finding relevance in so many areas, yet the most overlooked must be in the dynamics of teams and collaborative efforts. In fact, having coached teams in organizations around the world, we know that an individual focus on success is so significantly detrimental to the success of a team and the mission or goal of that team, that even the most reasonable individual and team goals may be impossible – let alone the exponential outcomes most organizations target today. The question then is, what do you about it? We’ve cracked the code in this space and we’re sharing this research article to help you and your team optimize and thrive at all levels; as individual team members and leaders, as a team, and for the organization overall.
Today, You're A New Team With 10X Results
I get really excited when I spend time with clients at dinner or in sessions. Through the facilitated discussion, I hear the kinds of things that make me feel a renewed sense of permission to challenge and change the stuff in teams that’s broken. In organizations across the world, people get comfortable. We lean into doing what we've done before, we create routines, and they are like the most comfortable bed you have ever been in. We stick to those routines as if our life depends on it. In doing so, we lose a significant amount of potential value, latent value, that fails to get unleashed because we’re not working effectively, both individually and collectively. Join me as I share my perspectives in this critical space and invite teams across the world to be a new team, today.
What Every Leader Needs To Know About This Critical Inflection Point
Leaders and their colleagues who have partnered with us have realized that success may be easier than they expect, and making success easier is merely a choice that happens at what we call the Critical Inflection Point (and by the way, oftentimes, we help teams shift from failure to success). Find out where that point is and how it can help you 10X your results!
Teaming: Past, Present, and Future
In this article, we're going back in time to see some of the historical events that shaped teaming and we'll also look at the root causes of poor teaming so we can learn from the past and make the teams of the future go further, faster, and more joyfully. Our research has cracked the code in this space, and we can show you the shortcuts to 10X your success today.
Teaming has been influenced by many historical events that have driven trends and changes in how teams are formed, structured, and operated. Are you ready for a whistlestop tour of the past?
10X Success Starts With ‘How’
Years ago, in the now famous video, Simon Sinek introduced us to the concept of Starting With Why. We love this and agree with it wholeheartedly. Now, how do you align a team around achieving exceptional results? Sure, you have to get them aligned around and excited for the North Star they are going to deliver together, but then what next? We believe 10X Success Starts With ‘How’. Find out how your team ranks on the Teaming Competencies Maturity Model and what you should do to achieve exponential outcomes with them.
To The Power Of Team
I’m so excited about the release of our new research that we’re calling “To The Power Of Team”, which explores why a lack of effective teaming competencies is holding each of us, and the world, back. Learn how we take teams for granted, be invited to consider a different view around the correlation between effective teaming and how long a team or organization has been established, and appreciate that what is commonly seen as the ‘soft stuff’ actually enables or inhibits outcomes. The sad fact is that 50% of the value of teams is locked away but can be unleashed with effective teaming competencies. Excited for you to join the community we’re building around this critical content and to share your thoughts on it, too. See you soon, To The Power Of Team.
Effective Communication In Teams Is The Gateway To Success
Through working with teams across the world over 30+ years, from Fortune 10 to small startups, the thing that separates high performing successful teams from the rest, is strong communication. Explore why and the benefits it can bring. Unlock Team Potential with research-based team transformation and make average teams world class. Deliver 10X outcomes with less time and effort, more candor, collaboration, and accountability.
Business Is Human; Relationships Power Growth
In today’s workplace, building strong relationships is a powerful asset that can greatly contribute to individual and organizational success. In today’s technological society, it is easy to get by communicating behind computers and phones, avoiding direct contact. Here are 8 key benefits of fostering relationships in the workplace and why you might consider picking up the phone instead of texting, or maybe taking a colleague to lunch or coffee.
Your Next Team Member Will Be AI
As the world starts to awaken to the possibilities, challenges, and necessary next steps with AI, employers, leaders, and team members are considering that they may soon be working with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) colleague. And depending on where your organization is on the adoption curve, it may well be true that your next team member or colleague could be AI. And even if that’s not the case, it won’t be long before AI colleagues are as common as computers in our work or home-based offices. This has significant implications for you, your team members, your colleagues, and the ecosystem you've built – or are building – with customers, trusted partners, and experts.
Culture Change CAN Happen Overnight
I was telling a colleague earlier this week about an important initiative we are working on with an organization that is going through an industry defining transformation. The client said, “We need more time to make changes happen.” My reply to them stopped them in their tracks. The bottom line is that we are all empowered to make change happen; but if we don’t use that power, change won’t happen - however long you give it to manifest. And culture change is easier to effect than most people think!
Did You Know You Own Your Colleagues’ Success?
I spent last week with a client sales team that was looking to improve results across their sales dashboard. In pursuit of diagnosing the issues, I found that everyone was working hard - each Sales Manager was busy all day, every day - but that the results were not what they wanted. In fact, I’d say more explicitly; each manager had a number of under performing sales representatives, and as a consequence, sales were down versus where they were expected to be in first quarter against the aggressive targets the company had set in a declining market. As our research proves time and time again, two key drivers really make a difference. And if you apply both of these, along with the right mindset of owning success together, you’ll get 10X results in no time.
Corporate Change: Five Awakenings from The Last Month
During the pandemic, most teams changed more in ten weeks than in the last ten years. For decades, we believed successful corporate transformation was almost beyond reach; it was too hard to make significant change stick – especially in larger companies. So many companies attempted to make major change happen. Most failed in the achievement of what we call the North Star, such as return on investment, increases in employee engagement, technology adoption, cost reduction, and so on. If we are honest, most of us had been begrudgingly happy with the status quo because it meant that we didn’t need to change anything ourselves. We were too busy. We were already working too many hours without a break, and we wanted all or part of our weekends to ourselves. We didn’t want to have to invest in changing something and, along the way, help others change and be successful too. But we learned a lot about organizational change from the seismic shifts brought about by the pandemic. Here are the top 5 corporate awakenings that we should take away.
Change Never Happens If You Accept the Status Quo
I was truly shocked. It made me think about what we are leaving on the table in terms of business results and shareholder value every single day. Let me tell you how it all began, and how we are all empowered to challenge the status quo in our organizations. Indeed, we have to challenge it to make change happen.
Make Remote Work More Productive And Joyful
Working remotely is rapidly becoming the new normal. According to Gallup, 43% of employees work away from their team members at least some of the time, and 20% of those who work remotely do so 100% of the time. And these stats shouldn’t sound surprising. The obvious benefits that working remotely creates for employees as well as employers, like better work-life balance, agility, and the expansion of the talent pool, prove to be well worth the hustle of switching from working in traditional office spaces, or splitting your time between both modes.
While being highly rewarding in the long-run, however, this transition comes with some serious challenges. For example, the lack – or shortage – of face-to-face time makes it harder for teams to develop trust, work collaboratively, and support each other’s growth in a meaningful way. Of course, there is no shortage of SaaS companies that constantly come up with brand new tools promising to solve these pains. Yet, there is still a lot remote teams can achieve on the behavioral side that can exponentially accelerate their results.
The Criticality of Building a Community at Work That Fosters “Doing What You Love” Naturally
Doing what you love and feeling content in your work shouldn’t be a reality for a privileged few, rather it takes a bounty of introspection and collaborative effort from within a team. After all, a community simply can’t be built overnight. In these difficult times, relationships and community have never been more important.
Are You A Fool Beyond April 1st?
Over the years, I've been the fool and have been caught out many times on April 1st. Perhaps I'm too trusting of other people! While an April Fool's joke may be an opportunity to laugh at oneself and see things from a different angle, we may be missing the bigger picture here…
Do You Love Your Job Enough To Start At 2am?
When your alarm wakes you up on a work day, how do you feel? Sure, it may depend on what you did the night before, when you went to bed, which day of the week it is and how busy you've been, but what's your overwhelming thought? Would you choose to start work at 2am? Most people wouldn’t, and while I understand why not, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Don’t Implement Agile Leadership; Live It
When anyone looks back on big achievements, whether in their career, sport, or something personal, they recognize how far they’ve come. We know inherently that there are lots of necessary steps involved to get to that end goal, and we know that our mindset is critical to enabling us to take the right steps and have the right behaviors to achieve it. Why then, when we consider implementing new, sizeable transformation efforts, like say, Agile Leadership, in our teams or organizations, do we stray from the inherent principles associated with undertaking a big journey? Explore this critical topic and see how you can accelerate your results in the shortest time possible. And, the funny thing is, it’s surprisingly easy!
Brexit: Why Team Structures Limit Or Enable Outcomes
Unless you have been avoiding the news and social media for the last three years, you will know that the United Kingdom has decided to leave the European Union (or rather, a slim majority decided this in a national vote). It's so hard to try to please all of these stakeholders, especially when their views are diametrically opposed. Now, conflict isn’t – per se – a bad thing at work, indeed, that’s how many different ideas can be harvested, though what is a challenge is how the various stakeholders are organized. Traditional structures inhibit results in every type of organization. It’s time to recognize this and shift how we work to overcome these barriers.
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