S2 Ep.24 - Eleni Jacobs - Building teams from scratch

What distinguishes a well-functioning team from a friction-ridden one? How do we know what to spend time on as we start building a team? And what do we need to take ownership of as leaders and co-workers?

With Eleni Jacobs we break down the concept of psychological safety and look at the conscious and unconscious dynamics that rule and create our teams - as a group and as individuals.

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About Eleni:

Eleni, owner of NNORM, spent a big part of her career in the corporate world, working as an internal team coach and later as the manager of a team of 50+ individuals. She is a certified NLP practitioner, change manager and habit coach.

As her passion for people management and team dynamics kept growing, she founded NNORM in 2020 with the mission to make psychologically safe team environments the new norm within companies.

Today, she focuses on helping scale-ups and starting team leads creating such environment. Doing so, she enables them to build a healthy and productive workspace and helps them navigate their new leadership roles, enabling them to lead from a place trust and connection.

Want to connect with Eleni:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/elenijacobs 

Norm:
www.nnorm.be

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EP. 048 Transcription

[00:00:00] Shani: Hi, my name is Shani and welcome to the experience designers podcast, where we explore the human experience, what it is and how we might create better ones for ourselves and for others. Here it is the team you're going to work with for the foreseeable future. How do you make it work? We've all been there.

[00:00:25] Balancing, gelling as a team with working towards delivering value together. I'm not sure about your experience, but I've seen it get quite messy. In this episode, I'm joined by Eleni Jacobs, the founder of Norm, a company aimed to help startups and scale ups build strong teams. We talk about what is needed when you start from scratch with your team.

[00:00:51] We dive into the buzzword of psychological safety. What does it actually mean in practice? How do we as leaders and co workers step up to co create an environment of trust and safety? And why is it important to look beneath the surface? Welcome 

[00:01:13] Eleni: Eleni! Hi! 

[00:01:14] Shani: I'm so excited for us to have this conversation.

[00:01:18] It's been a little while coming. We've philosophized a little bit before, um, before we dive into the nitty gritty, of course, had a little look at kind of your journey and you've gone from corporate into entrepreneurship from, Leading teams internally to guiding and consulting and helping teams externally or kind of from the external lens.

[00:01:44] And so, of course, super curious, tell us more about who you are and why, why this path? What, what led you 

[00:01:52] Eleni: to this? Yeah, so first of all, I'm very glad to be here. Uh, so thank you for inviting me. Um, so what led me to this path? Um, like you said, I started working in the corporate world and from the beginning, um, I've always been very, Curious or interested by, like the dynamics between people, the dynamics in groups of people and I, at a certain point in time, I was like you said, I was working as an internal team coach on a design thinking coach.

[00:02:24] So I worked with a lot of teams from all over the company. One of the things that stood out to, stood out to me was that there were such big differences between the teams in terms of performance, how they collaborated with each other and so on, which, like it stood out to me because everyone was working in the same company with the same company culture.

[00:02:45] So I was very curious as to, like, what is it that causes these differences in teams? Because there were teams that were Um, communicated extremely openly that they're to challenge each other where everyone, even the more silent people were not afraid to speak up or to challenge ideas or opinions from their colleagues.

[00:03:05] These were often also the teams that came with like these crazy ideas that were super proactive to solve their, uh, their challenges. And then you had other teams where the opposite was true. Um, so where. You immediately saw that some people were, people were afraid to, uh, to speak up, um, where not everyone was, um, participating actively in, in discussions or in brainstorm sessions, for example, um, and where sometimes even when the boss came into the room, uh, the whole dynamic and the whole atmosphere shifted completely, um, um, So me and my colleague, we started doing some research to find out like what is it that that determines whether a team is a great collaborative team.

[00:03:52] And what is it that, that causes this, this friction within teams. And we quickly stumbled upon the concept of psychological safety, which is maybe for the people who I've not heard of it before. It's basically the fear that, that people have, or when it's not there, it's people being afraid that they will be punished for being themselves, for speaking openly, for, uh, challenging others.

[00:04:21] Um, they will be probably be afraid of, of, of failure as well. So these are all things that you, um, If you recognize this in your team, it's probably linked to a lack of psychological safety. So we stumbled upon this concept and, in a lot of research, they highlight psychological safety as like the number one ingredient or the number one element that distinguishes a normal team from like a high performing team.

[00:04:46] So that's when we started, uh, testing out some approaches when we were working with these teams internally, in order to Create this psychologically safe team environment, um, with in whatever team we were, we were working with. Um, and we also started doing some, some of our own research on the site in some market research in smaller companies, in start and scale ups to see if they as well struggled with like the same kind of challenges that were also linked to this lack of psychological safety.

[00:05:19] And we found out that indeed there are a lot of like mutual components and mutual challenges that are all linked to to that. And I fast forward to a couple of years later when I was leading my own team of about 40 people. This was my first, team lead experience. And this is where I found out that it's actually, it's not that easy.

[00:05:39] It seems simple, but it's not that easy to create this psychologically safe team environments on a day to day basis. So even though by that time I had, like, I knew theoretically how to install it. Um, still it's, it turned out that there was a big gap between knowing how to, and actually doing it, on a day to day basis.

[00:05:59] And all of that led up to like, um, us launching norm, but the mission to, to make psychologically safe team environments, the new norm within companies. And we mainly focus on helping start and, start and scale ups do so. Hmm. 

[00:06:16] Shani: What an amazing journey. I love that there's so much curiosity in how you kind of got to that place and, and both kind of doing the.

[00:06:26] external research and your own. So I'm really curious, of course, then what have been your conclusions or aside from psychological safety, or let's like double click a little bit on that. What have been some of your observations as to then what, what is a good Human experience of a collaborative environment.

[00:06:48] What does that look 

[00:06:49] Eleni: like for me? It comes down or based on my, my observations and my research, it's come down, comes down to three main pillars that need to be present in a team in order to create this great human experience. The first one is, uh, the first one is connection. So people need to feel both connected to, to each other, and connected to the purpose of the company that they're working for.

[00:07:15] The second one is engagement. So people need to know how they are creating impact and how the company is creating impacts. And especially in the younger generations, this is becoming more and more. Um, important. It's almost the number one thing that people, um, ask for when they start working, they want to create an impact and they want to know how they contribute to that impact that the company is making.

[00:07:37] And then the third one is growth. So, people need to be, able to grow both personally and, professionally in the job that they're doing. And I, so based on what I see also with clients is that if these three. If these three pillars are available or present in a team, then, um, people will generally not only perform well together, but really feel, feel good at work as well.

[00:08:02] And feel like they're, they're thriving, thriving at work. And I think maybe these three pillars won't be, I think for most people, they won't come as a big surprise. But what's really interesting is that there's a difference, or usually in a team, there are two types of dynamics. You have the conscious dynamics and the unconscious ones, and the conscious dynamics are the ones that you can, that are almost visible, that are being discussed, that are being talked about, that you can see or feel.

[00:08:31] Uh, so for example, for connection, a conscious element is the communication, like the frequency of the communication, the quality of it, which is a big contributor to, the feeling of connection. For growth, it could be, for example, established goals, clear roles and responsibilities, maybe even the level of autonomy that you're giving to your team as a leader.

[00:08:52] But then there are also these unconscious elements in in the team dynamics, which could negatively impact this these three pillars. and unconscious dynamics are the ones it's basically everything that's living under the surface. So for example, something that might be impacting connection is a conflict avoidance, which is usually something that you're not really Um, you're not really seeing on the surface, but that has could have an impact on the connection in your team because it often comes with, for example, unspoken frustrations, unspoken opinions, dreams, beliefs, needs, um, which if they're not being brought to the surface can lead up to, um, to a negative team, uh, team environments, team experience.

[00:09:43] And for example, for, uh, the growth parts, some of the things that are living in the unconscious layer that might impact, growth in a team is for example, the fear of failure. So if people are afraid to take action, to make mistakes, it will also impact their growth process. So, and this is where the importance of a leader comes in because good leaders.

[00:10:04] Then to focus on the conscious layer, which is already a great start and which is definitely needed. And which will probably also be enough in the, in the short run. But great leaders also are aware of the unconscious team dynamics and they spend time to bring everything that's under the surface to the surface, from time to time.

[00:10:24] Which, which is needed in the long run to keep creating this, there's a great team experience. 

[00:10:30] Shani: Hmm. I love that you're bringing up this conscious and unconscious, levels. It reminds me of, we see that image less and less now, but especially the beginning of the two thousands, or there is a lot of this, when you talk about culture, this iceberg kind of image where it was like the top and the bottom that was really, really big.

[00:10:51] Um, and I hear you talk about leadership, but I, I'm curious to like veer off a little because one thing is what the leader does but how how can you then also like stimulate everyone in the team to be curious about this or aware or it's not just the leader's job it's everyone 

[00:11:11] Eleni: I'm guessing so the one thing actually that can help um Uncover this like unconscious team dynamics is psychological safety, and it's up to, it's up to the leader to create a safe, a safe space, a safe team environment.

[00:11:26] And then, of course, it's up to everyone, that is working, every individual that is working in that team to use also that environment to, to take ownership of what you need of what you want, and to. To, yeah, to really uncover what's living inside of you and to also openly listen and interact with your colleagues to, to nourish that connection in, in the team.

[00:11:48] So it's up to the team leader to create that environment. And once it's there, it's up to every individual to take part in, to take part in it. 

[00:11:55] Shani: Yeah. I would love to like dive a little bit deeper into psychological safety, because from my points of view, of course, I'm in a similar sphere to you. It's a word that kind of comes and moves around a lot and everyone talks about the psychological safety.

[00:12:12] And then I keep wondering, do we really know what it takes to to create it? Like, what are the actions? What, what does it actually look like? Because I think it's easy to grasp the feeling like you feel like it's okay to fail, or you feel like you can step in with your vulnerability or your humanity and all that.

[00:12:33] But what do you do? Like, how, how do you do it? 

[00:12:38] Eleni: Like, like you say, it's, it's become a bit of a, and I'm actually glad it's becoming a bit of a buzzword because when we started out three years ago, at least in Belgium, little people had even heard of psychological safety, so they had no, uh, knowledge whatsoever around the concept, so we're already a step forward, But what in what I see in need is that a lot of leaders in and management teams are Talking a lot about it and they're talking even to their teams like how important they find it that people feel psychologically safe and that Psychologically safe team environment is being created But the thing is it's not about What you say about it.

[00:13:14] It's how you demonstrated in on a day to day basis. And like you say, it's not that it's not that simple to do, or it's not that clear for most people as to like, what do I do to to create a safe team environment. But for me, it all comes down on daring to be vulnerable as a leader and daring to you. Look at yourself as well.

[00:13:41] And I will maybe give the example or my own, personal, experience when I, when I was leading a team. Um, the first couple of months I noticed that there was a lack of psychological safety and I saw this because my team was very afraid to take actions or to take decisions. So in team meetings or in discussions, we kept going round and round in circles and no one there to, like, actually, take initiative and, and go for it.

[00:14:11] And they also tended to like involve as many colleagues as possible in these discussions because they wanted to approval of everyone because they were so afraid that, maybe their colleagues won't agree with the decision that they were taking or the actions that they were taking. So it, it took, as you kind of mentioned, we spent a lot of time in meetings and discussions and nothing ever happens.

[00:14:32] So it was only, When I realized that I also had that actually my team was, mirroring a lot of my own, my own actions and my own fears and my own behavior because when I started out in, in this position, I, and this is something that I see with a lot of clients as well. Um, you're new, it's your first, uh, experience as a leader, but even as a business owner, when you're growing a team, you want to.

[00:14:58] You want to do as perfect as possible. You want to be, you want to be there for your team. You want to have all the answers. Um, your, I was also a bit afraid to be judged by others because, I knew that I was relatively young at that point. So I knew that I, would have to prove myself. So I wanted to prove both to myself and to others that I was worth being at that position.

[00:15:19] So actually, I was also very afraid to fail. And I was trying to be this know it all leader with all the answers. That was very, afraid of the, um, the opinions of other people around me, which is something that I, that reflected on the behavior of my team. And it was only when I realized. the part that I had also played in this lack of psychological safety in the team that I could start to change things.

[00:15:46] So one of the things that I did was I tried to let go of this perfectionism and I started like admitting that I did not have all the answers. I started asking for help to my team. I started relying more on their skills and expertise. Um, so that they could step up. Um, and I also started framing failure.

[00:16:06] As experiments, which also changed their whole mindset around the fact that, okay, we're not, we're not like taking an action and either failing or not failing, but it's just an experiment. And we will, like, we will see in a couple of weeks, if the experiments worked or not, and it's not a big deal. And it's these are this kind of these are the actions that really had an impact on the team and that quickly change the whole dynamic and that quickly increase the psychological safety that was present in in the team.

[00:16:37] So these are a couple of actions that help for me, but it's very important to to become aware first of like, what is the underlying. Reason why people are not feeling safe. And does it have something to do with maybe your own behavior or your own beliefs as a leader? And how can you start there and start changing, changing these things in order to have a positive effect on your team environment?

[00:17:03] Shani: I love what you're saying there, how also often our external environment or our teams kind of mirror a lot of the feelings that that we have. I recognize that both from teams and also even from parenting. I have two small children. And sometimes when you're like really insecure about something or you're feeling conflicted or confronted with something, it comes back to you all the time in that external environment.

[00:17:28] What I'm also really curious. What I'm hearing you say is that the team started working better, but I'm also curious of how did you see other people in the team step up towards this and contribute towards 

[00:17:39] Eleni: this? Yeah. So, so what I really saw in, in their behavior is that they, they started asking for help more.

[00:17:45] Also in team meetings, they started admitting when they, were stuck when they didn't have the answers. When they were really making mistakes in the process. So this also sped up like, a bit of the, or this, this, made it possible for us as a team to step in, whenever someone else had a, had an issue.

[00:18:04] So this is something that I, that I noticed. They also became much more proactive. So they came with ideas. On their own without me having to ask for them or having to like, uh, start talking about them. So they became much more creative, much more proactive in, in their way of doing things. Um, and I think these are the most, and they start opening up more towards each other.

[00:18:26] And not just towards me because that's something that I also often see in, in, with clients that I'm working with is that people are not always. They're mostly not afraid to open up to the team leads, but they're afraid to open up to each other. And this is typically an example of a lack of psychological safety in the group.

[00:18:44] So it's important as a leader that you, that you, create a space where people also open up to each other and not only to you, in order for them to work better together. 

[00:18:54] Shani: I love that. This reminds me of this model that I worked with. I think the translation is the openness and trust spiral.

[00:19:04] It was developed by Anders Vendelheim. I think he's a Stockholm university, but I might be mistaken. The basics of that is that it. It starts with your openness, and then it spirals, then that creates trust, which creates more openness. And so it's a downward spiral, which feels really counterintuitive, but the downward spiral is the depth of the relationship.

[00:19:32] Yeah, and the deeper you go on the spiral, the more complex the tasks that you can handle become. Because when you have more trust, you also can take more risks. Yeah. So your story there really reminded me of that. And just this really important thing that Each has to take that responsibility to make it start with their openness.

[00:19:56] Yeah, yeah. And of course, as a leader, and as somebody who's kind of setting the framing for a context, there is extra importance to doing that. And then equally to like, step aside and let it happen. I know we would facilitate team development activities. And sometimes we would talk to the leader beforehand.

[00:20:18] And it was always about this balance of like, Yeah, it's good for you to lead and lean into the openness and vulnerability. But once the ideas start coming onto the table, that's a good moment for you to step back and kind of, okay. leave the floor to, to more people than yourself. 

[00:20:37] Eleni: Yeah. And, and this can be a, because it's, it's easier said than done to, to open up and be vulnerable and then lean back and let things happen because, but it actually takes a lot of courage to do so.

[00:20:52] And this is why it's so hard for a lot of, leaders and people in general. Because like you said, every individual has a certain responsibility in, in the safety that's, that's present in a team as well. But it takes a lot of courage because it's super scary to, to open up and risk that you're being judged by others or risk that, maybe the quality of the work will, will, um, will go down or, yeah, like any of these, these, these consequences that being vulnerable and opening up and stepping back could have, it's, it's a scary thing to do.

[00:21:25] So, yeah. 

[00:21:27] Shani: It is really scary. And it's something that it also brings up for me is this. I think we're sometimes confused about private versus personal. And we think that vulnerability has to be really private, and that we have to expose all of our, you know, deepest secrets. And maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's more about being open about our insecurities or our limitations in knowledge or things that are kind of at play in that environment or, or daring to bring in experiences from other places or other places in our lives as much as we want to, or as little as we want.

[00:22:09] But I find that that's a balance that a lot of people. Play with and that we kind of get a little bit insecure 

[00:22:17] Eleni: about, yeah. And it's, it's like you say, it's not about like discussing your, your marital problems with your team. Not at all. It's about admitting that you, maybe don't have all the answers or asking your team for inputs.

[00:22:30] You, stop believing that you need to do everything and know everything as a leader. So it's all about being vulnerable about. your insecurities and, and, the things that evolve around the workspace and not necessarily your private, your private life. And this is something as well that, that could, um, that is maybe the distinction between trust and, and safety.

[00:22:53] Because when you're talking about. Uh, interpersonal trust opening up about your private life. Can help increase that interpersonal trust because people know something about, you know, something about who you are as a person, even beyond like the work atmosphere. But to create safety opening up about like just the, the personal insecurities on the workfloor are more than enough to stimulate others to start opening up more and rely on their colleagues as well.

[00:23:20] Shani: Hmm. I love this distinction between trust and safety. I'd love to, to dig into that a little bit more because I think trust is a really, it's a word that keeps coming back right now. Also, when we look at the environment that we are working in, which is for the most part, very hybrid, uh, or fully remote.

[00:23:42] And there's a lot of conflict around that. And, um, Can you trust and are people trusting enough and the trust is, is really the basis of a lot of things. And then equally then safety is. So yeah. What are your thoughts on how we balance these things a little bit more?

[00:24:00] Eleni: Yeah. So basically I once heard someone explain it like this.

[00:24:04] And for me, it's It grasps the both concepts pretty well, like trust is, is whatever happens between two people, whereas safety is more the feeling in a group. So you can perfectly trust someone. And also for trust, you have two types of trust. You have trust, on the more like business level. Like, for example, I trust in your skills and I trust that you will do your job well.

[00:24:30] And I trust that if you, if I ask you something. That it will be be done and be done with with good quality. And then you have this interpersonal trust, which is more like I trust that whenever I tell you something, you will keep it for yourself, for example. Um, and you need all three of those things in, in, in a team.

[00:24:50] So you need the safety and the two types of trust in order to function well, But trust is built more one on one, whereas safety is built in a team environment. And this is the big, the big difference. And when you're talking about, like, working from home, for example, and, and daring to let go of control, it's about Whether or not you trust that person because probably as a leader, you have people where you have no issue letting go and, um, and maybe trusting that the work, um, will be done and then there will be other people where you have more or we notice that you struggle more with and that you tend to want to be in control more, want to check up on that person more.

[00:25:31] Um, and this is because the, the trust level is not the same with both of these, uh, 

[00:25:37] Shani: these types of people. I like that. I think I have, I have another dimension to that, uh, which I also think is trusting ourselves. Yeah. And sometimes I think that stops us from trusting others. Yeah. When we don't trust ourselves to handle anything that comes, or when we don't trust ourselves to be able to like make something out of whatever comes out of a situation, then it's really hard to put trust in.

[00:26:07] anywhere else. Also, and yeah, I think that's, that's been one of the things that I've observed and that I keep hearing a lot of conversations is trust is so abstract. You can't touch it. Sometimes you don't have proof. Sometimes, a lot of times. you have to trust, even though you might not have any proof whatsoever.

[00:26:28] I always say either way, I think control is an illusion. Even when we think we have it, we don't. So a lot of the times we actually just need to completely let go and trust without There being any sense of anything, and I always feel like this is a parallel thing of, of, of fostering it within ourselves.

[00:26:50] And also looking at how we're contributing to it in our environment, in our structures, in, you know, whatever we're partaking in. And it has to be both, like, it can't just be one. It has to be both at the same time. And it's not that easy, at all. 

[00:27:07] Eleni: No, indeed. And, and... I think part of the, or what might help to, if you struggle with this, uh, trusting others and letting go of control, which is indeed very often a bit of an illusion.

[00:27:19] But it's to, to determine what you're really afraid of. And if you, and this is something that we help our clients with as well, to like really narrow it down to why is it that you have. Trouble trusting a person or trusting a team. Um, and if you know what, what the baseline is, if you know what you're really afraid of, you can start communicating about that.

[00:27:42] Then you can start even building in a structure that maybe helps you, um, trust or build that trust more step by step and not just, just all at once. So, because if you have trouble trusting, um. Trusting someone or giving trust. Um, it's always because there is another fear lying underneath and it's important to to identify that fear first before you can start trusting more.

[00:28:08] Shani: Hmm. I love that you're bringing this to the table. I had a previous guest a few episodes back, Jim Tam, who works with radical collaboration. And it's, substantially researched framework for how you build collaborative environments. And he also brings up fear, and he brings it up from a slightly different perspective, because in radical collaboration, you talk about defensiveness and how He also.

[00:28:35] When you get defensive, it's one of the main, main obstacles to great collaboration, because as soon as you get defensive, there's basically nothing constructive that can happen anymore. Um, and. He says the same thing, that the root of our defensiveness is always fear and getting to the root of that and equally making a plan for yourself.

[00:28:59] So noticing when does my defensiveness get triggered or when does my lack of trust get triggered? What do I do in that moment with myself? How can I move myself out of it? So yeah, just an observation. I love seeing that this comes up again and and really. Fear is a really big energy that moves 

[00:29:20] Eleni: us in the workplace.

[00:29:21] Yeah, it is. And a lot of people keep focusing on, like the, I need to do this more, or I need to let go of this more. I need to let go of control or, but it's, it's much more effective to. identify what's underneath and to start making an action plan to work on that instead of what's on the surface, what you can actually see.

[00:29:42] And this is again, the conscious and the unconscious layer. What's conscious is what you see and what you perceive. For example, defensiveness, you see someone getting defensive, you see someone getting their wall up. But what's interesting is what is the like the unconscious thing that is happening in that person.

[00:30:01] Um, and their needs or in yourself, if you're the one getting defensive or, about something. 

[00:30:08] Shani: I love that. I think for me that what it brings up for me is it's quite symptomatic of how we do a lot of things, I think, in a work environment is we only treat symptoms. We don't really take the time to go to get to the root causes.

[00:30:24] So whether it is about how we're building up our team environment or are we creating a solution of something, we're putting a lot of band aids on this conscious layer and not getting deeper into the motivations of why and how come and what was and I've definitely seen that throughout my work career as well when people go, here's the best solution, I said yeah but why Do you even know why people weren't using the other thing?

[00:30:53] No. Okay, well, maybe we should find out first. No, we don't have time for that. Okay. I'm not sure it's going to be a sustainable solution that we're creating now. But let's give it a try. And usually it isn't. But it's just, it's kind of ironic to also hear that we, we actually kind of replicate that also when it comes to our more psychological environments.

[00:31:19] We kind of avoid the root cause because it's a little bit scary. Even just going there is scary. Nevermind what you're going to find there. No, 

[00:31:27] Eleni: true. It, it, it takes courage to, yeah, to do so. I 

[00:31:33] Shani: want to pick up on that thread. It takes courage, uh, because it's a word that you mentioned. And, and I also know that.

[00:31:40] What you then do now is you help startups, scale ups, like build this from scratch. That's a courageous choice in itself to like start out and go, how do you start and how do you even stimulate that courage within people or do they come from that place or how 

[00:31:59] Eleni: does that work?

[00:32:01] Yeah. And maybe to come back on this, on the starting, from scratch part, because this is, it's one of the main reasons why. Um, we focus on working with start and scale ups is because they have, it's easier to start from scratch and to start, to tear everything down and start rebuilding something afterwards.

[00:32:18] So if you're like a business owner and you're start to building a team or your start growing your teams, um, you have the opportunity to do things differently. And what I often see is, and I think it's partly because maybe a lack of courage, but also lack of, Lack of experience, a lack of knowledge.

[00:32:37] But what I often see is that, that these companies and these teams that they're like copying whatever they're seeing in like the bigger corporates, they're copying the structure, the way of doing things. But the big advantage of starting from scratch is that you can also start from scratch in these things.

[00:32:57] And as you can start building a team structure, a company structure, That really fits the needs off everyone in your team. And with leaders is the same thing because more and more when you're a business owner and you start, you start out from this passion that you have very often, or you have this amazing product is amazing service that you're really passionate about.

[00:33:21] And when your business is thriving, the logical next step is to start building, building a team. Thank you. So suddenly you're not only entrepreneur and business owner, but you're also, you also have the role of like leader, uh, people manager, inspirator, visionary. So suddenly you have all this extra roles that you, kind of organically, rolled into, but that you didn't necessarily choose for.

[00:33:46] And. I see that a lot of these people, feel like, because it's what happens in the big companies. It's like, you're the boss, you're the leader, it's your company. So you need to also take up all these roles. But what I'm seeing with, with clients right now is that they actually. That they started daring to admit that, for example, people management is not at all something that, gives them energy.

[00:34:08] It's something that they're not either not good at or not wanting to like. Become, uh, become good at, or that they're not, not getting energy from. Um, and then it takes courage a bit to, to dare to assign, for example, that role to someone else in your company that is actually super excited about coaching other people and, taking time with your teams to, to work on the team building and the connection, uh, aspects of things.

[00:34:35] So this is something that you. And I like to build a bit of awareness around that you don't have to necessarily do things like the bigger companies are doing them and you have this opportunity to figure out what you like, what you're good at, what your team is good at, what your team is needing, and then you can start building based on all of these, this information, you can start building your own, your own company from scratch also on a team, on a team level.

[00:35:01] Cool. 

[00:35:03] Shani: How, how do people feel about spending time on this? Because this is one of the things that I hear the most working in human centric work, whether it's leadership, whether it's learning, whether it's something else, like a lot of the things that are related to our humanness, to our connection to, Just to our relationship with ourselves, to our health, a lot of those things tend to have to like stand aside when we're, you know, in a crunch for something or we're in a rush or we have big ambitions and we tend to push all that aside.

[00:35:40] So. Yeah. What happens in those dynamics when, when you work with these 

[00:35:44] Eleni: companies? Um, and this is actually one of the biggest misconception. It's not like we often, like you say, we separate like business from people, but it's actually you, you get results and you, you get a great performance because you spend time in your people.

[00:36:02] And by your team is collaborating well, when people feel well in your team, they will also perform better. And I think most people know this. Yeah. But still, when it applies to their own situation, it's it's a whole it's a whole other thing. Um, but I think it's also a misconception that it needs to take a lot of time to work on your people.

[00:36:21] I think when, for example, when you have this psychologically safe team environment, it does not need to take a lot of time for people to like, speak about what they're passionate about and to admit to you what they, uh, what they crave or what they need in, in, in the team. So I think once you've established this, this basis of trust and of psychological safety, then you don't need a lot of time to, to take a moment to listen to whatever your team has to say and what they need and, um, how they're feeling in the team.

[00:36:50] But the thing is, if you. If the safety is not there, then it could take a lot of time because then the unconscious team dynamics have been built up, to such like, such a, it's like the rock you say, like the iceberg. If you're, if you have a healthy team environment and if from the, from scratch, like when you started out, when you started building your team.

[00:37:12] Um, it was built on, um, on safety and, um, it was built on the fact, um, like you build in certain moments to uncover these unconscious steam dynamics. Everything that's under the surface, everything that's under the water becomes smaller and smaller. 

[00:37:30] So whenever you're building a team as a, as a business owner, and you, whenever you're starting from scratch and you spend a little time creating, creating a psychologically safe team environment, The unconscious level is, it's not that big and it can stay, it can stay small because you have this openness where people can put things on the table.

[00:37:54] And, um, the thing is when you're not investing in your people and when you're not investing in, in that safety, the risk is that this unconscious dynamics. Get so large and they build up and build up and build up and then whenever then you have a problem Then it takes a lot of time to start working on it because you have all These things living under the surface and it takes a lot of time and a lot of efforts To bring them to the surface.

[00:38:27] But if you do it from the beginning, if you spend time on your people, just a little time, like, but on a regular basis, and when you invest in the safety, then all of these things that are, um, that are maybe unspoken at first, they get to the surface pretty, pretty soon. And you can keep this unconscious level, um, small throughout like the lifespan of your company.

[00:38:52] Hmm. 

[00:38:53] Shani: I really, really like that. I don't know if it's a metaphor or just like the imagery of what you're, of what you're sharing, because I think even beyond. Work sometimes, and we've all been there in teams when you take the time to just meet people where they are both a little bit personally and a little bit professionally on a regular basis.

[00:39:18] And you, you know, you don't have to know everything, but you know a little bit what their mood is or if something is currently hard for them, whether it's at work or not. It also. As you say, it really de charges a lot of conversations because I think what happens when it isn't clear is that we start taking things personally and we start being offended by people's moods or people's way of expressing themselves or, you know, whatever it is that's going on because we don't know.

[00:39:49] And so we, and it's, I mean, I always think very little things are actually personal. To us. Yeah, they're personal to the other person, but, but we don't know that when we're not communicating . So I like what you're saying about having this continuous train of opportunities to maintain the unconscious as a, as a pretty small, there was always an unconscious.

[00:40:13] There's always an because we, we, you know, there are things we don't know about ourselves also, but, 

[00:40:18] Eleni: uh, but still, and there's also always. Even if you have this, this safe team environment, there probably will always be a little bit of a buildup. Um, but if you then, like you said, you take, these small moments with your team where you're really focusing on these, unconscious dynamics and where you're really there to listen to what people have to say, uh, where you're really not talking about work, but talking about the relationship and how you work together and evaluating, Because we often spend time like, for example, in retrospective, we look back at a certain period and we evaluate how we, we evaluate the work.

[00:40:56] Basically we evaluate the outcome, we evaluate our performance, but you need time as a team as well to evaluate how you're working together and your relationship with each other. And when you do this as, as a team on a regular basis, then the unconscious level, keeps being small. There will always be an unconscious level, but it keeps small and.

[00:41:15] Um, things are put on the table and they lose their, how do you say this? They lose their, their power, a lot of their, their power. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, um, it's not your, the sole responsibility of a leader to do things like this. If you, as a leader, if you're not good at it, or if you don't get energy from it dare to.

[00:41:37] Like outsource it to someone else in your team who loves doing things like this and who loves taking up, um, the role of, for example, facilitator of sessions like these or hire an external, an external party that could do this for your team from time to time. 

[00:41:53] Shani: And then I also think there's something to be said, though, for having experiences together and having fun and not always making it about like the deep and constructive things, but actually like spending time on building the relationship into as something where you share things together, because I've equally had those experiences where you might spend a little moment talking about.

[00:42:22] Just life and what's going on and then you might spend a moment just joking around and laughing and sometimes that moment is maybe a little bit too long, but actually then you squeeze in 15 minutes because you're so tuned into each other and you're hearing each other and you're kind of there. Then all of a sudden, the solution that you need is, is there in five minutes.

[00:42:42] And I'm a firm believer that it wouldn't have been that fast if you, if we didn't actually spend that time just having a laugh and, and, um, joking around. And, so a lot of it's also for me, at least, and the things that I see in here is also not making it all business. Because I think that's when we also lose our humanity a little.

[00:43:08] We can't like. Just have some laughs, have a joke. What's going on for you? Like, let me tell you this disaster that happened to me this morning. Whatever else is coming up. And there's so much value in just showing up as human beings as well as having those very constructive, honest moments. 

[00:43:28] Eleni: my experience.

[00:43:29] Definitely. And you definitely need those moments as well, because they, they also, they contribute to the connection pillar in your team. That's also needed. That's also needed to perform well on a business level. Um, you need people to feel connected to, to each other and you. Um, like communication, like I said, can boost that, but also like these fun moments that you have together, having a laugh together, talking about like this, the, even the struggles with maybe your kid that, that just started tooting or like whatever, whatever thing that is coming up, but all of these, um, these informal moments also help building connection in your team, which then helps your team perform better together, and collaborate better.

[00:44:13] Shani: Yeah, for me, it's also like, uh, taking off a mask a little sometimes when we, when we share these things. Oh man, this, I mean, it's happened to me a lot and I have had a difficult drop off in the morning with the kids or the weather was really bad and I come in and I'm dripping and we have a laugh about it.

[00:44:34] And, there's just something that happens also to the trust and the connection when, when we get to expose that to each other, that is really powerful. 

[00:44:43] Eleni: Yeah. And it's a lot about like, admitting, and giving space to emotions that are there. We don't always have to be, or we can always be like this enthusiastic professional being.

[00:44:54] And this is something that I, some of the leaders that I've worked with, they They even like if they see that someone in their team is struggling like emotionally, from a personal experience, they even give them some like the afternoon off, for example, because they know that if they would stay at work, that they probably won't be very, very productive or very good addition to the team at that moment.

[00:45:17] So they They allow them to take the time as well to give room to their emotions at that point and to, take whatever they need to, to then again be able to perform, for the team and to, to be there like professional self. But you need to have the space to be who you are, be as you are. And this is also what's, one of the questions that, like, for example, measures psychological safety very well is how expensive is it to be yourself?

[00:45:44] Um, and when that's, uh, when it's not expensive to be yourself, you should also be able to like put on that mask whenever you, you need, you need to. 

[00:45:54] Shani: I love that. I think I spoke to, I recorded a podcast with Aga, the Culture Lab podcast, and we were just talking about in a previous episode of this like professional suit and how it's so.

[00:46:11] It's so stifling. It's so limiting to, to us, to our capability, to our relationships, this idea of being a professional, what is it even? And why do we have to like, squeeze ourselves into that little idea and box? And I think it goes back to something else that you were onto a little bit earlier that the people are the business and when we are able to be ourselves, and when we are actually thriving in our relationships and having the space to be ourselves.

[00:46:41] That's when there is more value contributed towards the business. And I think from what I see, even that, like, it's an idea that we get intellectually, but emotionally sometimes that's where the trust is really hard because you can't have, you don't have any guarantees and. I mean, and, and as people we're, we're not even, we're not machines.

[00:47:08] And I think we struggle to like accept that sometimes that, okay, this person gets to take the afternoon off and that's actually a productive thing to do. It's not a non-productive thing. It's a productive thing to do or a thing that will create value. Um, so there are a lot of things here that I can, I definitely can observe from the lens and the lenses that I explore that, that I can imagine are challenging when you, when you move into building 

[00:47:38] Eleni: this.

[00:47:39] Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And again, it comes, it basically comes down to what are you. Why are you not doing it? And why are, what are you afraid off? Um, and to then start building an action plan or start, start communication around the thing that you're afraid off, to step by step build up that trust and, and yeah, there to give people what they, what they need as well.

[00:48:03] Yeah, and it's a two way street because we're talking a lot about the leader and that you need to like create the safe space for for your people and, and answer the needs of the people in your team, but it's a two way street. So it's also up to everyone that is working in the team to to do the best they can for, the leader or the company that they're, they are working for.

[00:48:24] I'm 

[00:48:24] Shani: also curious because you work in scale up environments and obviously those are environments that grow fast, that kind of probably go from smaller amounts of teams to bigger amounts of teams. And as you were saying in the very beginning, it can be very random. Kind of one team can do very well, another a lot less.

[00:48:46] So, I'm also curious, beyond the immediate team environment, Mm hmm. What does a company then do to make it possible for, like, a more even sentiment across teams, 

[00:49:00] Eleni: if you get what I mean? Yeah, yeah. One of the big challenges that I see with, with scale ups or files growing teams is that, Like the engagement pillar is typically, it is typically one of the, the hardest one to, to keep, to keep installing because, one of the things that is very often lacking is that the vision of the company.

[00:49:22] Which might be very clear to the people who were there from the start, but often gets a bit lost in translation whenever that company or these teams are growing. Um, and I see these, company leaders spending enough time to, like they have these, for example, two times a year, they have this moment with all of their teams where they explain the vision, to everyone, but what is often unclear is, Are often forgotten is a translation from that vision to how is everyone individually contributing to that vision?

[00:49:54] And that's something that's often not very clear for people, which also, inhibits like, um, great performance or great collaboration because they want to, people want to know how they personally, and as a team are contributing to a company's vision. And this is something that's often a challenge for, for especially fast growing, uh, team environments.

[00:50:15] Shani: Yeah, I can imagine. I think that's maybe why sometimes I struggle with the idea of engagement as a sole measurement of things because it's, It's easy to feel engaged with something or feel motivated, but it doesn't necessarily translate into action. Um, and so, yeah, I'm always a little bit curious about that bridge of how do you go from that sense of, I want to contribute here to I know what I am contributing with here and that feels meaningful to me, which is what I'm hearing at least that you're talking about is kind of creating that link.

[00:50:56] But then I also think, is it then important to beyond the engagement, like, how do you make it okay to collectively spend time on your team? Because I think. I've been in big corporates, I've been in smaller companies, and I've had the same experience that you are sharing, from one team, from one leader to another, it's wildly, wildly different.

[00:51:20] And, and I've been very lucky to have some phenomenal leaders, come along on my path, but I also know a lot of people who haven't. And, uh, yeah, how do you, beyond them working with your vision, what do you do to make it easier for them? Teams across the board to actually invest in, in 

[00:51:43] Eleni: it. Yeah. And this is, um, again, for me, this is up to the, the leader to take the responsibility to translate the vision, to your team and to, how is everyone in my team contributing to it?

[00:51:58] Um, and this again needs to be an open discussion. Um, and we sometimes help the team do this and we call it a future perspective. So we start from. And then we create a safe space for everyone to be very honest about, okay, how do I, how can I contribute to this vision and how do I want to, uh, and what do I want to maybe learn in the process, uh, towards getting there?

[00:52:23] Um, and this is a point where like everyone in the team has also the autonomy to. be very open and to claim to claim a bit like this is a contribution that I want to make to the vision of, um, of this company. And it's you're basically as a company, you're a big ship that is sailing towards this, this magical islands, which is your vision.

[00:52:44] But everyone on that ship needs to not only know where you're sailing towards, but they also want to know, okay, in my, in my function, in my role on this ship, how can I, what can I do to make sure that we, that we get faster or that we, we get to the destination in a more efficient or a more fun or a more connected way.

[00:53:05] Um, so this is where an open discussion in the team needs to, needs to happen for them to really indicate how they, and think about as well, like, how do I want to, how do I want to contribute to this, uh, to this vision and these goals. 

[00:53:21] Shani: Amazing. Just to wrap up because now you're kind of, we're going into the area of actions.

[00:53:26] So now we spoke about the future scape. That's something that a leader can do. I'm curious to whatever kind of your top three actions that somebody can take can be a leader can be a coworker to you. Start creating that both safe and trusting environment. I think that we've been talking about. 

[00:53:54] Eleni: Yeah, I think one of the most important things, and I've mentioned it before, is, um, Stop trying to be the know it all leader.

[00:54:05] Uh, your team needs someone who they feel safe with and can open up to. And if you're being, or trying to be, or pretending to be this perfect person that has all the Answers and has everything figured out. You're actually alienating, you from, from the others, because they will start seeing you as this strange creature who, um, who does everything perfectly and your team will start to

[00:54:29] expect or feel like they need to meet your expectations, so they will start covering up things. They will be afraid to ask for help. They'll be afraid to open up to, to both you and other team members. So try to be, try to be vulnerable and, definitely don't try to pretend like you have it all figured out, but just be open and honest towards your team, about what, um, what you struggle with, what you need help with and so on.

[00:54:57] So I think this is one of the most, uh, it's this vulnerability. That's basically the most, uh, the most important thing. And then secondly, the second bit has something, it's linked to the mirroring that we talked about. So if you, if you have certain challenges in your team, we, we often start like wondering, okay, how can we change the behavior of the team?

[00:55:20] But very often it's a reflection of something like a blind spot of yourself. So if, if it's a structural challenge, of course, if, for example, structurally you see that your team has difficulty being open towards each other and speaking up and having the tough discussions, try to ask yourself the question if it maybe has something to do with your own behavior or something that you're, uh, yourself may be afraid of.

[00:55:44] Maybe if you, maybe you're yourself very conflict avoidant. Which will explain a lot about, the behavior of your team. So that's the second, second thing that I would like to, make others aware of. That it has... Pretty often, something that you can some, like, you can learn something yourself about, or change something yourself, when your team is struggling with, with certain things.

[00:56:08] Shani: I really like that. And I definitely think it's true on any one to one basis, wherever we feel friction, we can always look at what's my part in this. Yeah. I always like to think about that, like, how do we balance it as you say, the leader might be there to set a framework where we all have to step up to looking at the dynamics and where we feel friction and going, Hmm, how am I?

[00:56:33] What am I afraid of? What am I contributing to? Yeah, 

[00:56:35] Eleni: I really like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then, then lastly, I would just say if you're, if you're not a leader and you're missing something in your team, also take ownership of whatever you're feeling, whatever you're needing, and speak out also be vulnerable towards like anyone, anyone you can trust, and there to step up.

[00:56:54] Don't just. Wait around to, for things to happen, but take ownership of, ask yourself what you really need and, take ownership of that to start the discussion or start communicating, that towards, your leader or your colleagues. 

[00:57:09] Shani: I really like that. Honesty as well. And when you were, when you were talking about in the beginning of like giving up being right, my mother, who's a psychotherapist, She once said to me as she said, you know, you can either be right or you can focus on a relationship.

[00:57:27] You can't have both. And so, which whichever is your preference, and maybe some people really want to be right, and that probably isn't going to be conducive for the relationship. So, I don't know, and I could be wrong, or probably really good things to, to introduce into discussions, . So, yeah, I hear what you're saying and I really, I really appreciate these, these tips.

[00:57:52] I think they're super actionable, which is exactly what we wanted to get to. Yeah. In this conversation. So thank you so much for coming along and sharing your wisdom. My 

[00:58:02] Eleni: pleasure. Yeah. It was nice to be here. 

[00:58:05] Shani: Thank you for listening to the Experienced Designers. I hope this episode brought you some new insight on how to bring your humanness into the space of work and help others do the same.

[00:58:16] If you want to support us and keep exploring together, please make sure you are following us on your preferred platform, or even better, share this episode with someone who you think could really benefit from it. And, if you have any reflections Suggestions or questions to share with us personally. The easiest way to find us is through LinkedIn.

After all, better experiences are born from iterating together. Thank you.