A team gets called behind long before anybody proves it, and once that word lands, people start working like it's true. Nicole Morris has spent more than twenty years in corporate leadership, strategy and transformation, much of it running large implementations, and she has watched what teams and leaders carry into a room before anyone says a word.

Why behind means something different in every room. Why the Strong One is the most expensive leader to work under. Why a team that is always behind is usually telling you something about its leadership. What lagging teams are actually waiting for permission to do. And why the first move, when the label lands, is to acknowledge it could be true, then check.

Full disclosure: Nicole is Devon's wife. Then it's an interview like any other.

Nicole Morris (she/her): Founder, Labels Be Gone™ · Author, It's Not Me, It's You: Take Their Labels Off · Host, The Permission Slip. https://permissionfromwho.com

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0015-what-are-you-carrying-into-it&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=what-are-you-carrying-into-it

Commitment and compliance get used as if they mean the same thing. Commitment persists when nobody is paying for it. Compliance persists exactly as long as the reward does. This Sidebar takes one idea from Tuesday's conversation with Jeff Burstein (he/him), that when a team that was improving slows down, something in its environment changed, and follows it all the way in.

Why "we didn't get real buy-in" is the wrong argument. Why commitment and compliance look identical on a dashboard right up until the reward moves. Why the team is where a problem shows up and almost never why it happened. And why done is not holding: the declaration is the moment the tending ends.

And three things to do Monday, none of which cost money or need permission: build a two-column timeline, read one person's objectives against what you're asking them to do, and name one thing you declared done, then find out who is still holding it.

The full conversation with Jeff Burstein, "It Never Sticks": https://thelaggingteam.com/podcast/0013-it-never-sticks

Jeff Burstein (he/him): Founder, Advanced Enterprise Agility and L-EAF.org · Co-founder, L-EAF Lab. https://www.L-EAF.org

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0014-nothing-changed-but-the-reward&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=nothing-changed-but-the-reward

A transformation can look done and be gone six months later. The deck was fine. The team drifted back to the old way of working, and the signs showed up there months before anyone upstairs wrote them down.

Jeff Burstein has spent more than 20 years coaching enterprise transformations. His argument: when a team that was improving slows down, the question is rarely what the team is doing differently. Something in the environment changed: a new rule, a new policy, a reward that no longer supports the way the team works. And no change in mindset ever simply sticks. You let it go, and the pen comes back to your hand.

Along the way: why people come before process and tools, what velocity is for and what happens when a leader demands it doubled, rote work versus knowledge work, why breakdown comes before breakthrough, and what to tell a leader whose team is behind right now.

Talk about your team: https://thelaggingteam.com/start?episode=0013-it-never-sticks&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=it-never-sticks

Jeff Burstein (he/him) is an innovator, founder, consultant and enterprise transformation coach. He is the founder of Advanced Enterprise Agility and L-EAF.org and a co-founder of L-EAF Lab.

L-EAF: https://www.L-EAF.org

L-EAF Lab: https://www.L-EAFLab.org

Advanced Enterprise Agility: https://www.AdvancedEnterpriseAgility.com

L-EAF on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/L-EAF