In this podcast, Richard and Ricky explore some practical things you can do to build the culture in your organisation.

Org Culture is a big topic, and often you can get lost in the plethora of models and ideas. Culture feels big and something the most senior people have to take action on. Yet there are some simple, practical steps that any of us can take to improve the culture, even if it is just for our team.

From establishing the group's purpose, discovering the values, and aligning the business practices around measurement, reward and processes, manager have much more control over the culture of their team than they might believe.

What can I do to build rapport quickly? Rapport is a key skill when building relationships, when influencing others, and when collaborating, in fact, any time you want or need to engage with someone.

Ricky asks our resident psychologist, Paul, about practical ways to instantly build rapport. Together, they explore crucial elements to make rapport-building easy and impactful and get your connection off on the right foot.

If you want to avoid friction and get stuff done more easily, you almost always need to form a connection with your team, coworkers, suppliers and customers. Tune in for practical takeaways you can put into action immediately.

We like to think that all the teams in our organisation are aligned, collaborating effectively, and working in harmony. In an ideal world, all of our teams' passion and energy would be combined against the external world, beating competitors and solving problems that get in the way.

In reality, under pressure, we often turn on the groups closest to us. Not because they are the problem but because they are visible and identifiable. It is hard to blame people we can't identify, so we find an 'enemy' we can name, which can be as simple as the team down the corridor. Sales get frustrated with Service, Manufacturing with Supply Chain, and the front line with Leadership.

When the in-fighting bubbles over from noise to frustration, you need to deal with it before all the energy (time and talent) of your team is focused on internal battles and not directed towards delivering the outcomes you require. In this podcast, Ricky and Paul explore how teams get themselves into this position, and when you find yourself dealing with this, what steps bring alignment and harmony back to your world?

Frances Frei - How to build (and rebuild) trust. TED.com

https://www.ted.com/talks/frances_frei_how_to_build_and_rebuild_trust

When different opinions appear in the decision, the easy answer is to push the decision up. Let the boss decide.

There are two issues with this strategy. Firstly, while the boss will probably engage with the process, they will also hate it. They have enough to do without having to make decisions for warring teams. Plus, it never reflects well on those asking.

The bigger issue is when the team is in a matrix, and there is no obvious boss to pass the buck to. Then, the team has to find a way or risk the consequences of no (or late) decision!

In this episode of the podcast, Richard and Paul explore strategies that will help teams that disagree find solutions. From agreeing on where you agree to reciprocal behaviours, this podcast outlines strategies that you can use to create consensus and momentum.

Here is another podcast that examines the questions that regularly arise in our work. This time, Richard and Ricky consider why managers might avoid some of the more big (difficult) conversations that are needed between manager and team members.

Often, senior managers assume that these conversations are happening, only to find out as issues escalate that a culture of over-politeness or hoping things will sort themselves out if we ignore them for long enough has sowed ambiguity and misunderstanding.

Why do these conversations feel so difficult for managers, and what can we do to ensure that they happen early, ensuring small problems never get to become critical issues?

Richard and Ricky mention a great book on structuring these challenging conversations:

Grenny J., Patterson K., McMillan R., Switzler A. and Gregory E. (2021) Crucial Conversations (Third Edition): Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. McGraw Hill

In this podcast, Paul and Richard tackle one of the questions we have been asked a lot since the pandemic ended - How do you build trust between team members and teams that don’t spend that much time in the office.

Building trust between individuals and groups is far more complex than many of us realise because we do it so easily when we are together. We build trusting relationships through the micro-moments we spend together: before meetings, over lunch, getting coffee and in quick informal interactions. We also build trust through working together. It is the combination of both these types of trust that forms the relationships that we need to work together.

As leaders, we must change how our teams interact to ensure that the trust we need to achieve our goals is actively built so our teams can leverage trust when things get tough.

The coaching question in this podcast might not be as common as others we have covered, but it is one we can personally relate to. Regardless of your role or expertise, there are times when we give it our all, putting everything we have to get something over the line, then we reset to the start and have to go again.

Sales targets reset each year, project manager complete their delivery only to get a new project, software engineers get the release out the door, and then start working on a new feature.

Paul promised you a quote: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” This quote is by Friedrich Nietzsche and is discussed in Victor Frankl's work. Ricky and Paul explore what it takes to reset, sometimes overnight, and find the energy to go again.

This episode continues our series of common topics from coaching conversations. In this episode, Paul and Graham consider the idea of 'people pleasing' - being helpful to the point of thier own detriment.

From understanding the difference between helpfulness and people pleasing, through to how to say no to the boss, Graham and Paul talk about what might be driving some of these behaviours and shat are the simple strategies that you can adopt to ensure you find the balance between helping and supporting the people around you, and ensuring that you protect your own time and wellbeing.