Let’s jump right in. So welcome, everybody. We are here. Today’s masterclass is beyond the team session, sustaining team development. So if that’s what you’ve signed up for and the link that you come to, you are definitely in the right spot for that.

Let me just come down one slide.

And, absolutely, it is a privilege, and we don’t, do this often enough because Tracy is always so damn busy. But to have Tracy join us and co facilitate, today so really excited by that. And I’ll let Tracy introduce herself very quickly, and then I’ll introduce myself for for those that don’t know, FacetFive or who we are.

Okay. So I’ll give this hello. It’s nice to see some pretty familiar faces and names, so, nice to connect with people again. So, yeah, I’m I’m Tracy, and I have my own coaching and facilitation business called Double Yoke as Grant put there. And I’ve been using FacetFive in my work now for fifteen years, I think. And so probably no new as long as that, grant.

And it really is central to the work we do for lots of reasons we’re gonna talk about together today. I would say that most of our work is definitely more and more in that space of leadership teams, actually, and, team coaching, individual coaching, and that kind of gets into some of the systemic culture change stuff as well. But for those of you that don’t know, my career one was business development and sales, and I worked for Sony Music for a very long time.

And I think the golden thread through all of that is this, for me personally, a real passion and care for wanting to build relationships, and that still sort of carries on in the work all of us, do today.

Fantastic. Thank you.

That’s lovely. So for those that don’t know me, I’m Grant Gemmell. I’m part of the Pacify global team down in Cambridge. I’m the managing director for the global, business. Kind of like Tracy, I came to, Pacifive in around two thousand and five, two thousand and six, and, actually, I came into the UK, of the business and the global business at the same time. Tracy went came into the UK t three business as well. So we’re kinda growing up with FacetFive, together.

And you’ll see, some familiar faces on here as well as some of my team, online as well. Jane and Sonia and Nicola live.

I think other people and then all of our partners across the world and people from across the world. So thank you for joining us. It’s a real privilege to, grab some of your precious time and to spend some time having a conversation with you about the thing that we love the most, which is, people and personality and potential.

Now as we said before, what we’re going to be talking about is beyond the team session, sustaining team, development.

So the time that we’ve got together, we’ve got about just under an hour left, is we wanted to have a discussion really about what is this to sustain a healthy and high performing team.

What does a team development journey look like, and and what does it actually do? How do you embed some of the insights out of a team session?

And then how does that sustain collaboration and accountability?

They’ll I mean, they’re a master class. Each one of those dot points, really, is a master class in, in itself or a conversation in itself. But that’s what we hope to get through through the conversation and learning from each other.

But, actually, the first question that I have for you is, in this first line, we’ve put both healthy and high performing team. And I’d be really interested to understand what do you understand those concepts to be?

So you can just turn on your mic. You can put your hand up. You can put it in the chat.

Anything that you like. Whatever works for you.

I’ll I’ll jump in if that’s alright, Grant.

Yeah. Please do.

So for so for me, I think, helping high performing team, the way I would kind of envisage that, it’s is a, a team which is comfortable with itself.

Mhmm.

Is able to, manage any conflicts in a efficient and effective way, and actually gets its, tasks or shall we say is is orient is is getting its goals accomplished.

Great. Yeah. Yeah.

So comfortable in themselves. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. I think all of those would tick that box of high performing for sure.

Anybody else? Anything you would add into that cons those two concepts? Yeah. Amy, please.

Need to unmute myself.

I just thought that healthy is a precondition for high perform high performance.

Mhmm. And my first thoughts with health goes to psychological safety, so everybody feeling safe in a team.

Yeah. Perfect.

And, of course, according to what life balance is, physical health as well. But I think we we we learned that, but we’re still fighting with the the psychological safety.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that’s really hit it to the point there, which is it’s a precursor for high performance health in in its all its aspects, all its forms, I think, is a precursor for high performance. So while we do focus on task and we do focus on goal, we do focus on collective outcomes, all of those great things, I think without that healthy component, then we are really missing some of the aspects, the important aspects of the sustainability of high performance, as well.

Yeah.

Some of the people I’ve talked into in the chat box as well and Rachel. Hello, Rachel. It’s a long time since I’ve seen you.

Talking about the need for balance as well that if the expectations are so high, do you compromise the health of the team? There’s a lot in there about be having shared understanding, supportive, etcetera.

Mhmm. And it’s when we were doing our preparation, for this and just having a conversation, we’re talking about some of the words that we kind of dislike, which is, for me, it’s grind and grit, that if you’re using those in the context of, we’re, you know, in the grind and you’ve just gotta have grit to get everything done, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a healthy and high performance team. And I think yours, Tracy, was, resilience.

Oh, it’s resilience. And even though I do completely understand it’s important, it probably sits in that space of health, I feel like it has been really overused and we prefer to use. It’s just Samantha’s, I guess, but but it does kind of talk to more intentionalities. We we prefer to use resourcefulness rather than resilience. How do we build resourcefulness and be able to sort of know and trust in ourselves that we have what it takes, etcetera etcetera.

But I think also what we hear a lot of is high performing has been around for so long. And I think for some people, it still means that if we’re achieving our goals, we’re achieving our targets, then we’re high performing.

But, actually, are you doing that in the in the least painful way? Are you doing it with minimal politics, minimal complexity and confusion?

Are people to your point, Amy, are people feeling psychologically safe and able to ask for help when they need it? So the healthy bit feels very, very important.

Yeah. And I think what, you know, we’re seeing also in the chat there, obviously, is in from Kira. She’s saying healthy and high performing. You know, a a shared understanding of that.

Just like anything, you know, you shared understanding. What is collaboration? What is innovation? What is performance?

That we actually have a kind of a, what’s the word? A a contract, almost an internal contract, and it feeds into what Sonia is then saying, a culture that values individual and team well-being. And that becomes really important is that, actually, we’re not and I think there was something about Adam Grant had said is, you know, the the work culture that celebrates burnout and, all those sort of things, how does that create healthy and high performing teams at the same time? So we wanted to start with that because it’s an it’s a really important aspect of, thinking about that sustainable collaboration, sustainable accountability, or just general sustainability for teams.

It also has such a positive impact on, how long people stay in teams, that level of discretionary effort that they put in in there. But, ultimately, that, when we walk out the door, that we’re leaving with a positive intent. And then, actually, we’re going home and we’re having a positive conversation. We’re not taking that negativity or we’re not taking that home, and it’s feeling like it’s coming home with us.

Obviously, you know, sometimes we say, oh, we take it home on the bus. We have dinner with it. We have a shower with it. Go to bed with it.

We get up with it, and we take it back the next day. And I think a healthy and high performing teams, that dynamic, that conversation, that intent is shifted in the language that we’re using. I had a great day. I was challenged, but I really felt like I got my best.

I felt like I was supported, in my team. I feel like this concept of work like balance is balanced or mixed in the right way for me. So I’m choosing more about what makes my job healthy, what makes my performance, and my potential being realized.

Fantastic. So, other high performing teams is about collaborative leadership to have access to lead colleagues and accept leadership in reverse. Yeah. Then we’re just talking about self leadership, John, around how individuals, their mindset, their intrinsic motivations, and some of their behaviors will drive high performance and healthy teams as well, and offering a space for each individual to leverage. Actually, I think it’s about how do we create the right spaces and individuals create those spaces for themselves inside of the team.

And as we all know, FacetFive is the perfect tool to help you, do that, and we need everybody in the world with a FacetFive profile. So you should be here. You should be all off, profiling people.

Fantastic. Thank you. So what we then have is another question, for you.

So we’re full of questions today. Hopefully, we’ve got a few answers, as well.

And as I always say to everybody I work with, I’m a really lazy facilitator, and I like other people doing a lot of the conversations, not so much me. So the coms the question that we have for you, which is what are some of then the challenges that teams are facing that’s impacting the work that you’re doing or being asked to do with them?

So thinking about what are you doing with what are you being asked by for teams? What are the challenges that teams are facing just at the moment that you’re seeing that’s really prevalent in your work, or what type of work you’ve been asked to do with teams? And you can put up your hand or, drop it into the into the chat. I’ll give you a starter for ten.

So these are some when Tracy and I spoke before and the conversations that I have with our clients all the time. So, yeah, reduce face to face contact. That is such a, a key thing. I think it’s where we’re seeing Jenny, I think where we’re seeing also is that team size is growing, and demand is growing on individuals.

It’s more matrix. Multiple of member member of multiple teams, for example, tends to play that out, as well.

I don’t know how to raise my hand on Zoom. Hey, Michelle. I think you’re with everybody. I have balloons and hearts and rainbows turn up on mine. I have no idea how I create those.

So, I think I spent spent ages trying to find it, in the last chat. So I’m Yeah.

It’s nice it’s really nice to see you, Tracy, by the way. I mean, nice to see you both, obviously. But, Tracy, you were there when I got accredited probably about probably, seventeen years ago or something like that.

I’m not a new year now.

I think, for me, the biggest challenge that I’m actually experiencing is inexperienced managers or managers getting into leading teams who don’t really want to lead teams, teams, and therefore, they’re not doing the basic things that teams need, like giving good clarity in roles and responsibilities, setting a good seat a sort of environment of psychological safety, and they come to me capability as a line manager and build your emotional intelligence and give the right rigor and structure to be able to do that. And I can’t fix it for you. So they come in and go, oh, you know, psychological safety is terrible.

Can you come and run a trust workshop? Or like he said before, Tracy, a resilience workshop. And I always sort of have to push back and say, well, why do you need them to have more resilience? What is it that is is lacking?

And then being able to get them to really think about root cause as opposed to let’s just run a workshop that’s gonna fix magically all of the problems that we face.

Yeah.

Sounds very familiar, Michelle.

And, also, what I what I would add on that is, you know, we’ve talked about it so much already on this call, haven’t we? Like, the psychological safety and trust, which I think everybody completely agrees is fundamental.

But the the how prepared are people to actually spend the time it takes to really, really create teams where there is a culture of high trust and psychological safety. So that’s another challenge is is the level of preparedness for what it takes to actually make those things a real a real thing.

Right.

I’m just capturing some of these notes because then we we’ll hand these slides out to everybody. So as opposed to kind of having to filter through the chat, we’ll add them in.

Yeah. I was trying to have a little look.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I saw I think was it Martha’s lack of strategic time?

Absolutely. I think constantly we’re getting feedback around just this time out to think together is value enough. But then I think sometimes as facilitators that feels like it’s too simple. But actually, or or that’s probably the ask. Just come and help us have this time to strategically think together.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead, Amy.

I’m reading the the list of challenges, and what came to my mind is that some of those might be symptoms.

And I think that’s a challenge if a team or a leader approaches me with a long list of what he, think is a challenge, and I would say is a symptom, and find the root cause. And maybe the root cause is we only I don’t know. Just saying maybe four or five.

And this is why I just taped, it, in the the chat. It’s, the challenge is mastering changes.

Yeah. Mhmm. Mastering change. Yeah.

I think both the challenge is mastering and change, but also being the facilitator of change.

And I think it is to Michelle’s point before, it’s like you’re coming in with a silver bullet, and you’re asked to be the leader, asked to be the manager and solve some dysfunction, in the team, the barrier to the team performing well, the barrier to communication, the barrier to clarity, for example.

And I think, yeah, we I I think that’s an important one, which is, you know, how do you embed diversity, equity, and inclusion, in their and, you know, I think in as you’re saying, by stealth, which is such a shame, isn’t it? Because we’ve seen here, obviously, locally, in the UK where we’ve got, party members coming in saying anybody in a DI role is gonna lose their job. It’s such a a level of ignorance that is shocking, I think, in terms of where we’re finding ourselves. So, therefore, not only in the United States, but here in the UK, but also in Australia and other places, the challenge is we’re having to face into geopolitical issues and a polarization of language and a misuse of language, I think, that actually distracts us and distracts teams from the work that they want to do.

Yeah. Denise, do you have your hand up?

Yes. Thank you. I I’m just thinking about the, the subtlety that’s lost by people not having as much connection face to face and just being able to assimilate that, I don’t know, knowledge or insights, or empathy to how somebody might be feeling or, coping.

And I worry from a you know, to the point that someone raised about performance management that there are so many things in performance management that you need to be kind of there in the moment and have that observation.

And I think it’s going to be very difficult for people to do that as effectively if there is this kind of continued disconnection. I mean, I don’t know what the answer is because I think you know, remote working is clearly, here to stay, but I think it presents a lot of additional challenges.

Yeah. I think so. I think that’s underpinned then by trust and and communication, as well. And I I maybe expectation and accountability both ways in my experience, although having more conversations with leaders who are talking about hybrid working and holding people accountable, but feeling like they’re having then to hold people accountable as opposed to being a two way conversation, which is how do I hold myself accountable?

And therefore, how do I have a conversation about what should be delivered and how it should be delivered and how I do about how I go about that?

And to your point, a lot of people feeling disconnected, because they don’t have those, intertask conversations. So they’re not connecting with people personally because they’re not understanding, oh, you bought a new car even, or, oh, I didn’t know that your dog was sick, or I didn’t know that you were on holidays.

All of those sort of connecting pieces, which become really important because I think what we have been saying is that, ultimately, people are looking for stability.

And some of the challenge if we kind of bring that down to a point is that people are they’re seeking out stability in in what’s actually happening around us at the moment. I mean, the world feels chaotic. It’s probably just as chaotic fifty years ago, but what we’re finding is that stability comes through connection, connection to yourself, understanding of yourself, self efficacy, self awareness, valuing self, connection to others, to your point, Jenny, I think, and then through purpose.

So where are we going? How are we getting there? What’s my role? How can I contribute?

I don’t know many people that don’t wanna turn up at work and do a good job, and feel like they’ve got a sense of purpose, and commitment, a North Star, if you like.

I think as well the other point you made there, Jenny, which is important and it’s very important for human beings is if we are spending so much much more time working in the way that we’re working today, it it also ties into Rachel’s comment about visibility is we’re losing so much data and insight and nuance because we’re not in the room together, like, having face to face interaction and conversation. So there’s all this stuff that ends up I think we just end up transacting a lot more rather than actually innovating as somebody put in the chat box as well. Because we’re we’re just losing so many connection points in the broadest sense.

Connection of thinking, connection of like, for to build relationships, connection with other teams. I mean, often I’m, you know, I’m sure it’s the same for you guys. We’re hearing that teams only come in to be with their with other members in their teams, but what about team to team? And, you know, once you’re in a bigger organization and a bigger system, there’s so many connections that are just being, neglected.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

And that’s that, Very true.

Yeah. It’s that interpersonal connection, which, we are if we we say, if, you know, if you rewind back to the beginning of COVID, we had a different we were learning it very quickly. We know we can do it because we’re having a different type of conversation.

We were checking in with people. How are you? I’m interested. I wanna know about your well-being.

Can I do anything for you? How are you coping, with this? Because we all feel a shared sense of responsibility for each other. Now fast forward to today and probably tomorrow and next week, we get in. We’ve got forty five minutes. We’re down to the agenda.

We’re back to that task focus, and we’re losing the interconnection, in between people, which helps us build the trust, helps us build performance, which helps us build the health, of a team.

I also think building on that, but the other thing that I might put into this challenges is is I feel that the way that we work now and, like, your example of how we did check-in, we know we can do it and the difference that made for people.

But when you see things like the pace of work, but we’re being asked to do more with less or doing less with more or whatever, doing more with us, That feels quite jarring. Like, this pace and speed we’re being asked to work at, but the stuff we’re being asked to deliver.

And I think that that is creating quite a lot of well, we’re hearing anyway, is a sense of wait and see. Because if you’ve got an organization that talks a lot about well-being, and a lot of organizations do, but then they don’t walk the talk, now we’re starting to see that sort of disengagement happen as a result of what you talk about well-being, but you and and we did it once. Remember when we did it, but now we don’t do it in the same way, but you’re asking us to work harder. And what you said earlier, Rachel, you know, hitting us around the head with, like, being resilient and push through, etcetera.

Bit of incongruency there for people, I think.

And we’re expecting collaboration. We’re expecting innovation. We’re expecting all the things that make high performance in organizations kind of differentiate themselves and that, you know, people like myself kinda gravitate towards, you know, give me a conversation about something abstract, and I’ll talk your leg off a chair type of thing.

But when we’re at a hundred and ten percent, then we don’t have time for that. And we know that high performing teams, healthy and high performing teams deliberately set time aside to make that happen. They work on relationships. They work on the interconnectedness of individuals and their stories. They work on collaboration, and they find time, to do that and to do that well.

Very good. So next question.

I told you. Lazy.

How do these challenges and requests inform what you design and how you deliver it?

So I know there’s, lots of probably coaches on here, works, I think, for the same for coaches as team coaches and facilitators and, mentors and strategy people or HR in, particular.

So, again, we’ll get you started. Some of the some of the things that we think about when we have all of that in our mind and all those sort of challenges, the things that start to you know, what should be bubbling around, you know, team function of purpose, the size and how they’re made up, and time available, and want versus needs. But I’d be interested to know, on this list, if we were to add more to it, what would that be? What are you considering when you are and what’s informing your design and delivering?

Yeah. Lovely, Michelle.

Yeah.

And I think that’s a really good point that more and more and more, that time to scope, what the actual ask is is so important, and the work actually starts at that point. It doesn’t start when you’re in the room. It’s starting right at the beginning when you’re scoping what the actual need is.

Space for people to connect. Yeah.

So true. Oh, that’s a It’s so good. You have to make it bigger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Rachel.

And my microphone.

So I think for me, what I’m focusing on two things at the moment. One is making sure that individuals spend time to get getting to know outside of their job description. So it comes back to this point of, I suppose the remote hybrid working, how we can be super focused on what your job is versus what your skill set, your knowledge.

And we all have so much value to bring even to things that are outside that immediate remit of our job description.

We all have house that we run and and therefore financial stuff. We might not be in the finance department, but we have an idea and an understanding.

So there’s that bit of it, making sure that we think outside of the box, but also moving away from almost that retrospective lame type thinking.

And although Michelle says sort of about the, I think it was Michelle that said something about the solution side of things.

I want lots of different solutions. I wanna think through all of the different perspectives and all of the different solutions and then find the right one for us in this moment aligned with purpose or what it is we’re trying to achieve. So they’re the the two sort of key areas that I focus on at the moment with regards to this particular thing.

Yeah.

The shifting mindset as well as really getting to know the person behind the job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pete, I think you had your hand up.

Yes. Well, hey. Welcome, Tracy. It’s good to see you again. Yeah.

You too.

Yes. Grant, always great to see you.

Thank you.

You know, I would tell you that, I struggle because I, in my mind, imagine my team coaching session It’s like a Disney movie, and there’s a problem and we solve it and then we get it all resolved. And then there’s music that plays at the end and we do that in ninety minutes.

And, more often than not, if it is a movie or a show, it’s more like Breaking Bad. There’s a lot of conflict.

And I think at the at the very beginning, one of the most important questions I ask is do we need to be a team?

And if we do need to be a team, what kind of team do we need to be?

Because being part of a team means I’m gonna give up some of the things that I personally wanna do, and that’s the challenge for folks at times.

And so that’s kind of the level setting at the very beginning. Do we even need to be a team? Because we can get things set on if we just work together as a group.

We don’t have to be a team, and there are sacrifices to being part of a team.

And I think it’s good to have that gut check at the very beginning.

Yeah. Definitely. Point.

Oh, yeah. I was gonna build on that just slightly, Pete, and I agree completely. And even if there’s agreement in the room, I do also like to to ask something to push a bit more about. Do do you do you actually care about this team? You’ve decided it is a team. There’s a reason for it to be a team, but do you care on how you’re going to show your care for this team?

Rightly said. Yeah. I I like that.

K.

Completely agree with these points. And some of them, they they seem so simple. Right? Like, let’s make sure we have proper breaks.

But it’s such a good point, Amy, because the amount of time we get people push back to us and say, it’s okay. We can have lunch in half an hour. It’s fine. But it’s the first time they brought all these people together for a year.

And we’re like, no. You will have a full hour.

You know? And you will have twenty minutes for coffee in the morning and twenty minutes for coffee in the afternoon. Because I think we are modeling what is a healthy way to work in the in our design. So, yeah, it’s a it’s a simple but such an impactful point.

Right.

Anything else that we would add on there? Because spoiler alert, we’re about to tell you the one thing that actually makes a difference.

So, well, in our humble opinion, of course.

Yeah. No.

You know, never been wrong.

Has kind of hit the nail on the head anyway.

So Yeah.

I see. Have that. Go ahead.

Amy? Yep.

Two things. One is about the breaks. I it’s it’s just a story, but a nice one. I had a team with, people from different countries and different, continents even.

And, of course, they asked for this thirty minute. It just took a rush. And it turned out that we had, we we had an hour because it took us an hour to describe the people from India, how a German cantina is working, and what is all the the stuff, and how how do you combine? What what do you choose?

And and that was a nice team event as well, and that that is practically what we just heard about DEI.

And, the second, what I would like to add to the list is what I call marinating in the problems.

I sometimes have teams would feel such high tension with all the the issues they have.

They tend to jump over the problem and have, there’s there’s there’s a lot of longing for a a quick fix, an easy solution.

And I would like to keep them in the problem space as long as possible to really understand and kind like, breathe in the problem to really incorporate it. Is it the problem, or is it a symptom? Or it it it it maybe it it it comes to the root cause analysis. So that’s marinating the problems.

I really like that. I like the idea of holding them in the problem just a little bit longer and asking questions such as, actually, is this something that we can control? Do we have control of this? Or is it something that we’ve made up that’s actually not a barrier, or is it something that we don’t actually have control or that we need to let go or work with?

Because, actually, I think sometimes, there’s a lot of people that they just made up problems. It’s like, oh, we just don’t speak that language. Well, there’s translators. We can fix that one.

Yep. Right. Next. So you you kind of have to allow them to kind of contest those, a little bit more, and they get better at doing it, I think, as well.

Fantastic.

And there’s Well, there’s loads of great stuff in here.

Like, I like John’s point is lovely, you know, that knowing that there’s someone I used to work with who used to say this lovely thing that when she started working with the team, which was, she’d always start by saying, you are already the perfect team before they started the work. So already embedded that, you know, you’ve got everything you need here amongst you.

And that just makes me think a little bit about what John’s put there about actually helping the team to remember those times and examples where they were and did perform as a great team is a great And I think it’s okay to understand when they didn’t perform as well because we learn from those some of the mistakes and and had that reflection point, which is what were the triggers?

What were we doing? What actually happened? What was my accountability and my role in that? I think because, otherwise, we tend to focus on the, oh, yes.

We’re a great team, and then we trip over the problems, and we skirt around them, and we avoid them, and we stop having the conversations, which become very useful.

Yeah.

Just my a bit more pragmatic as my affection drops as I get a bit older, I think.

That’s big.

Very good. So what have we learned, from I think all of these are absolutely valid. They’re all correct. We do them, and in some form every time that we design or deliver, have a conversation.

But, actually, the thing that we are getting to is that conversations and meaningful dialogue are at and always have been at the heart of healthy and high performing teams.

Now I did tell you there’s kind of just one thing.

And when you distill it all down, when you distill down the clarity making, when you distill down the connection, when you distill down the sense making process, when you still distill down the confrontation, it all requires one thing, conversations.

It requires a capability, a curiosity, an intent, to have better conversations and more meaningful dialogue.

That’s easy then. Job done. Yep.

Thank you very much.

Have a lovely afternoon. Yeah.

It sounds so simple. And I can see there was lots of comments in the chat box about how you try and make sure there’s enough time and space for this in your design days. But, also, I don’t know about you, but sometimes you I can definitely feel the pressure needed to design something that goes almost from activity to activity with a very clear output, a very clear action to take away. And I think that’s changing, in the last few years, but I think there’s still that pressure Because a lot of organizations do work that way. They seem to they they lurch from one activity to another. So it’s very tempting to want to mirror that sometimes in the days that we design and facilitate, I think.

And I think more and more, it’s if you think about the conversation capability, the comfort with conversations, and making space for for that quality of conversations. Jenny mentioned it. Amy mentioned it. I think a few people have already mentioned it, which is we’re just creating this space between the activities. It’s where how do we describe how a German container works to somebody who’s not there? And, actually, then you’ve got a connection.

How do you create clarity for somebody? You ask questions, and you have a conversation. How do you resolve an issue? It’s not via WhatsApp. It’s about sitting down and having a conversation. So I think all the things that we’ve spoken about, all those, technical aspects and the design pieces, all of those, but they all require a space for reflection, a space for curiosity, and you’re hearing me say that word over and over again to in order to create the space for conversation.

Mansoor, your hand is up.

Yeah. That that that’s a really good I’ve run Rick find that point of points really, really interesting, Grant. I think other thing around conversation is is that I think we tend to be quite bad at it, in terms of, I think we kinda grow up and are educated to be kind of advocates.

So we can tend to go into an into conversation with our point of view and going, right, I’m gonna advocate for my point of view, and just keep battering that out, and you wait for your turn to speak to get your point across.

Mhmm.

Whereas we do very little of the inquiry where, you know, trying to find out, hey. What does Tracy think? Why do you think that Tracy?

Rather than thinking so so that that kind of balance between advocacy and inquiries are a difficult thing to do, I think, but I think it’s something that us as leaders and people part of those teams, you really need to be able to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. To build on your point, Matta, as well. I think because we’re working in this way, and Rachel’s used the word in the chat box, it is very easy for our conversations to become even more transactional in this format because we can be in and out of meetings within thirty seconds, you know, and we can put agendas up on a screen and, you know, we’re looking at the agenda rather than looking at each other. So that kind of exchange of opinions or statements or updates, I think, has become even more prolific in this hybrid way of working.

Yeah. And so when you put in conversations are healthy, far too many people have them in their own heads and choose to hold on to their knowledge instead of sharing it. I think it’s also we hold on to that, not so much that you hold on to the knowledge, but we don’t feel accountable for, the conversation that we should be having and that we defer it maybe to somebody else. But that requires us not only to have capability, but also to have safety.

And that the conversation is two way, I think, as you’re saying, Mansory, that we are interested in what the other people but we’re also willing to have what comes back, and be responsive to that and understand as we come back our connection to ourselves, understand the triggers that occur for us, not to us, for us when those sort of things happen and be aware of how we respond to that because nothing worse than giving feedback or having a feeling like you’re having a safe conversation and then it being you’re being held to account, for it.

Jonathan, you got your hand up?

Yeah. Thanks, Grant.

I mean, in intuitively and certainly based on my practice, this feels absolutely right and absolutely key. But I guess now you’ve put it up on screen provokes a couple of questions for me. Yeah. So one is around how do we know that?

I mean, certainly, intuitively, that feels right to me, but is there evidence? I mean, we know there’s some evidence out there. Yeah. But interest and apologies if you’re heading that way or or No.

I’m not. But that’s good. Yeah. Yeah.

What is the theory and the evidence behind this? And then secondly, which I think is coming through in in some of the comments in the chat, particularly John’s there, is is how can we how can we consistently ensure that conversations and dialogue are meaningful? So what are what are the things we do as as practitioners to make to create that environment so that that meaningfulness happens.

Yeah. So number one, we’re not going there, but I can, dig out some research. Paul, you can send that through. Happy to share what I can find.

Number two, yes, we’re definitely going there, Nick. So thank you for the, segue. But I think intuitively, you’re right. I think we all understand that when we have better conversations and we have better quality conversations, which are more meaningful, and I think, the thing the point that we will make next is that not all conversations are good conversations.

And I think we all understand that we’ve when we’ve been spoken at, or speaking at somebody and how that makes you feel, when you walk away going, I’m not gonna get those ten minutes back, am I?

Or I’m not really quite sure what you’re asking me or what you’re telling me or what conversation we’re actually having.

But I think at our heart what we’re trying to say here is through our observation, I suppose, more than anything is that when we see teams who are good at communicating, good at conversations, good at having meaningful dialogue, we see both the health of the team and the performance of the team improve.

And that’s them also rating it back to us saying, yeah. Actually, when we have better conversations, we do better.

Now I’ll use my team, and we come together. Everybody’s in the office on a Wednesday, and I love a Wednesday. One, I like the social interaction.

Jane’s usually up from London. We’ve got Martine over from Belfast. And, actually, I think we move faster as a team. Now I don’t know if my team will agree, and they can certainly speak for themselves.

But I think it’s those moments of connection where we’re creating clarity, together. We’re creating a connection, beyond the work, which helps us drive, faster, where, I think, to Jenny’s original point is that I get to see body language. I get to hear tone. I get to feel how those people are, and I can’t do that.

I have an attention span of a small squirrel on on drugs. You know? So, I can’t my attention is has to move so quickly these days. It’s when I get to sit with people and I get to observe.

The conversation, I feel, is vastly improved because I get to hear that person. I get to really listen.

Tracy, would you add anything?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve I think what’s really interesting about your question, Jonathan, as well is and maybe it’s it’s a subtlety of language too because I think sometimes we are really deliberately talking about conversations here, which I don’t know if it does for you, but it conjures up much more around storytelling, sense making, which is such a primal, you know, necessary sort of habit, if you like, that we need to sort of be included and to feel psychologically safe. And I wonder sometimes if our clients confuse what we’re saying here with communication, which I think is subtly different and often is much more about how we communicate out a message. So to your point, advocate something or broadcast something. And here, what I’m thinking about is we’re talking about that very human need to share stories, to make sense of things together.

And I think that even scientifically would just alter things in our own physiology and brain that means that we can we we now know that we’ve got the cues to be safe and that we are safe in this environment. We can say what we need to say, and that and that we’re included.

And I think that’s probably more what we’re leaning on, which I know is what you were saying, by the way, as well because you’re saying what you see a lot more of is probably more of that advocacy and broadcasting.

And I think then that’s what teams think is effective, and that’s not what we’re getting at here.

So it moves us nicely that hand up as well.

Do you Oh, Martha. Sorry. Yes. Sorry. Yes. I was, again, attention span of a squirrel.

I think the other thing that, you know, it goes back to John’s point in the chat, but also something we talked about earlier with regard to session design.

And that is really being intentional about the questions and how are we posing the questions Instead of what’s wrong and let’s go down that spiral.

You know, what do we need to fix where we go down the spiral and all we get is a list of problems.

Let’s think about what are the opportunities that we have as a team that are uniquely, Mhmm.

And and just sort of elevating.

But also coming to a real crisp definition and having an overt conversation about what do we mean by conversation?

What does that look like?

And it’s almost a skill builder in that way.

So just a couple of random thoughts.

Yeah. Great.

I like the idea of that clarity.

What a a conversation for me, what does that look like for you? And not everybody wants an intimate relational conversation or to go any deeper. Some people just want something transactional, and that’s absolutely fine, as well.

Yeah. We’ve started using the phrase sometimes, like, what would it mean for everyone to be having very conscious conversations, though? So you’re at least aware of why you’re having them and therefore how you’re showing up. So if you ask somebody who prefers more, you know, a transactional type of conversation, that’s fine. But how conscious is that? And not just conscious for you, but conscious for the needs of the other person that you’re in conversation with because they might need something very different.

But I quite like that phrase of conscious conversations. Yeah.

And I think, yeah, to Jenny’s point and Sonia, it’s about how do you unravel some of what people are really saying, that decoding, I suppose, and using appropriate questions and, asking, you know, with real intent.

And, you know, as as we said, separating out the the the listening from the inquiry, and being really genuine genuine with that as well.

So let’s I’m just conscious of the time. Here we are thinking, oh my goodness. We’re gonna have the whole hour that we’ve gotta fill. So here’s some of the design design considerations.

And But based so yeah.

Is that yeah. Me? Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s you.

Yeah. Based on what the previous slide was, the reason why, you know, we wanted to absolutely put the meaningful conversations dialogue right at the center is is the center of our design as well. And it’s already been said in the chat box, but very, very cognizant of needing to create space for people more and more. Space for thinking and reflection, which I think, Param said earlier as well, but and then the discussion.

We need both. So space for both. And this goes to your point a moment ago, I think, Jonathan, around, you know, teams are having lots of meetings, and they’re having lots of conversations in those meetings. But that doesn’t actually equal or or translate into meaningful, purposeful, effective conversations. I think teams think they’re really good at it. And then when you start to actually look at it, they’re not as artful or as skillful as they think, but they assume they are because they’re doing it every day, day in, day out, you know, hour after hour, etcetera.

So we need to, like, debunk that myth. And then as we’ve already said, we’ve said this a few times now, but to reiterate that it’s the dialogue and conversations and how we facilitate those are very much at the heart of what we design and how we’re facilitating. Because it’s the thing that you want the teams to carry on doing once you’ve left, that they can do that for themselves, and that’s where they’re going to get their best work work done.

Yep.

And And we’re doing it too.

We’re modeling what they say they want or not always what they want, but we we definitely see that it’s what they need. So how we facilitate and how we sort of enable that space, create that space, and keep them in that space, which I think was to Amy’s point. I love that marinating.

Keep them in that space where they have to stay in that conversation for longer. Go deeper, go broader is is really is useful. And we can model that in how we design the day, how we facilitate these sessions.

So we were gonna share with you, and you’ll you’ll be getting the slides afterwards. This is just a framework that some of you might be familiar with, but it’s one that we like particularly and we use quite a lot. And if we we use it quite light touch. So it’s the Peter Hawkins five c’s framework that comes from his systemic coaching, research, and thinking.

And what’s really lovely about it is you can see that there’s this task and people focus. There’s the inside and the outside the team. But I think based on everything you guys have been saying, the fact that core learning is right here and it’s central to the to the health of the team is is a really important factor that everywhere we might go around this framework is always to keep, bolstering this the team as a learning team so that they can be self sustaining.

So we use it very simply, often in the diagnostic phase, which I think is what we’re gonna look at next. So, again, you’ll get these slides, but it’s useful even if you’re going to put dialogue and commute and conversation at the center of how you facilitate. They still need to sort of have some level of structure, some level of focus. So, again, we just share this so you can see what kind of things we might focus in on in each of these five different areas of this framework. And it’s just something we found very useful to clarify the need, actually, to diagnose and to scope the work.

And you’ll see that you we’ve got Facet here down this co creating space which is very much about the interpersonal team dynamics. But actually Facet can become a really useful, reference point throughout each of these five disciplines.

So again, it’s for you to use and to be able to put that in front of your teams, leaders, organizations to talk through a little bit more what is it you really need, and where should we start, where do we go first.

And those of you that have done the TeamScape training will have seen this process flow before. But, again, we thought it’d be useful to share with you in this session in terms of a a recommended sort of flow if you like. And you would all have heard of the great phrase start with the end in mind, but we do think that’s really important. It goes back to a lot of your points about the, you know, root cause analysis, really scoping it out, really understanding what they need, being able to better challenge back very early on around things that the sorts of things that we do are not a silver bullet.

So we start with the end in mind, and we scope and agree. We inquire and discover, which is done with the team, and we cocreate some of that development agenda before we even get in the room and start delivering some of that stuff. And then we’re going into that review process, and we’re going round and round to some extent to the but until they can they’re doing it for themselves. So to John’s point, giving them the challenge of working with a flow like this to have much better meetings, conversations, and and so forth.

Yep.

Good. Yes.

And, again, we won’t go through this in any detail, but it’s detailed for you that you can take away when we break down each of those sort of steps.

The kinds of things that you might think about doing in each of those in each of those steps. You will well, I haven’t put it here, but I’m going to talk about it. We often do include Facet in the diagnostic phase, which might seem a bit odd because Facet obviously is a developmental profile and and it’s brilliant for that and brilliant for team development, etcetera. But we find it’s really useful to try and do as early as possible for multiple reasons.

It helps us build a relationship of trust with each and every individual in the team. It gives them actual data on who they are, what they bring to the team. So even in this early stage of the work, in this diagnostic and inquiry discovery phase, they are getting data and insight. We are getting data and insight that’s really helping inform who’s who the team is and what they stand for.

Which so it it’s not being left to a particular session where we might do something around, you know, let getting to know each other better. We’re we’re in, incorporating into the work in a slightly different way. So it becomes a little bit more of that golden thread. And what a lot of you guys say to us about this shared language that the earlier we can get that shared language into the work and into them as a team, the more that they’ll use it. And, of course, we come back to it at multiple touch points through any kind of team facilitation and coaching. But we really like to use it as as early as possible for for those reasons.

So to, I guess, to conclude, some of those things that really have become important to us when we’re working with teams is that less is more. Space is probably my my watchword whenever I’m designing. Is there enough space in the day for thinking and conversations?

To your point, I think it was, Jonathan, like, using powerful questions often.

Inquiry, curiosity, etcetera.

Getting to understand really where the team is coming from and where they’re moving to. I really do like direction of travel statements and even getting the team to create them so there is clarity rather than us here, you know, playing back what we think we’ve heard, they then they’re actually articulating it.

Trust in the process. So there’s something it depends on the process is because I think one of the biggest challenges we all face is that we are get asked to come in and do this one day and fix everything.

So I think trusting in the process helps you talk about an actual process over time that is much more sustainable than, like, these once a year away days.

We’ve talked a lot about this already. So making space for that collective reflection and conversation and shifting what they already do. It’s not about fixing or creating new stuff. So really understanding where and meeting them where they’re at. So that actually is tweaking, and it’s it’s just creating smaller sort of micro habits around some of the stuff they’re already doing, and they’re already doing well. It might just be about, amplifying some of that as well. So it’s you’re hearing some of the strengths based approach in there as well.

So, again, we put this back here, this lovely quote, that it really is the most effective technology on Earth to build relevant common ground.

And teams can only learn. They can only make sense of their world, the the bigger world around them because they’re having conversations where they’re doing that sense making and learning together.

So that would be our sort of final key message that conversation really is the unlocker and needs to be central to the way we work and how we get teams working with each other.

Face to face, for sure. Much more ideal as well.

And that through those conversations, the design process becomes richer.

And that actually, as we said before, the sustainment of the initiatives, the insights are informed because they’re you’re enabling those, conversations to happen beyond the actual session, itself. So we’re enabling people with conversational skills, with content, with structure in order to keep the conversation going.

Because I think if while we have a lot of great times and a great insights coming out of a teaming session, conversations are the things that will will extend those insights where we make purposeful effort to have the conversations between each other and and, as we’ve all been saying, being curious and intentful, and really listening, to those.

And we’re right on, four thirty. So, there’s a couple of extra resources that we’ve got available, that you’ll get access to. We’ve got a, an ebook on some strength based culture which talks about, the power of conversations.

MyFacetFive, obviously, if you’re not using that and helping people get to know each other and create conversations, through that, let me know. I am really happy to take you through that.

We have a, there’s three hundred questions in this debriefing guide, which is, just, again, you know, if you’re short of questions to create a conversation, then come and ask because we’ve got lots of them, and I can it’s just a starter for ten. And then we’re just writing or just finishing a, facilitating collaborative inquiry using the group model as well. So if you’re in that teaming space and wanting to use a new model, which is very heavily on on conversations, on dialogue in all in that group, process, that will be available, as well for you.

One thing I would say is that if we’re using TeamScape with Teams, even if we’re not facilitating all of it, that was the other thing we wanted to say. Don’t feel like you have to, like, cover it all, particularly if you’ve got the opportunity to work with a team over time. But one of the most powerful things we’ve found is the relationship reports that you can build from the TeamScape reports, and and you encourage and challenge each team to go off and have a different conversation with their team members and colleagues. But within, with the support of the insight and the data, I think that’s something that feels quite safe for people.

We might give some guidance and some guide guardrails around that conversation, but it’s about them doing the work outside of the room and that those conversations continue. And the relationship report really supports some really great but meaningful, and to Rachel’s point, getting to know the person beyond the job, but to build the relationship between each and all those connection points between people.

And the conversation TeamScape conversation report, if you don’t know what that is or relationship report, again, just, put your hand up. I’m happy to tell you where it is. But it’s a it’s a written form or a PDF form of the content that’s actually in my Facet five as well. So really happy to help you with that.

In terms of then where you’re getting questions for Facet debrief, we’re gonna send you a series of links to the knowledge center.

If you’re a practitioner, you’ll be able to get access to all of these documents in there.

I did see somebody with their hand up.

Oh.

No.

Gone. That’s okay. I think I’ve answered that question.

But thank you, everybody. That’s us, done. I hope you’ve, enjoyed the conversation. Thank you for participating and, all your insights and sharing those.

It’s always really valuable for us to hear as well. If you have any questions, if you’d like to have another conversation about any of the content that we’ve spoken about or any of the, resources, please just drop us a note. You can either go support at Pacify Global. You can connect with us on LinkedIn, send a pigeon, whatever you like, really.

We’re always, always available. So thank you very much. I hope you have a nice, morning, afternoon, and evening wherever you are. Thank you for coming along.

Thank you, Tracy, of course.

Very much appreciate your wisdom.And for those people who know somebody who may benefit from this, we’re back in the building at eight thirty, tomorrow morning for another session as well.

Very good. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy your afternoons.