The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:10 - 00:00:29:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Emotional intelligence. It's a concept that's been around for quite a long time. You've heard about it. You've read about it. You may have studied it. But what about emotionally intelligent teens? It sounds good, but is it like a real thing? And what would an emotionally intelligent team look like? And does it make a difference in the bottom line of our businesses?

00:00:29:12 - 00:01:02:03
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll explore all of that and more starting right now. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this podcast, you could join us in the future. Live! It's too late for this one, but if you want to connect up with us, know when we're doing these live so you can take advantage of this information sooner and be more engaged.

00:01:02:05 - 00:01:25:12
Kevin Eikenberry
We do this on various social media platforms. You can find out when they're happening and how to involve yourself by going and joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Two of the platforms that these take place on, and you can do that by going to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linked in. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership.

00:01:25:17 - 00:01:45:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. There it is. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever. Leaders need a new perspective and a set of tools to create great results for their organizations and team members.

00:01:45:15 - 00:02:11:06
Kevin Eikenberry
That's what Flexible leadership provides you. Learn more and order your copy now at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. Now I'm going to bring in my guest what you've been waiting for. So you don't have to listen to me, but you can hear from her. Her name is Vanessa Drew Scott. She is an associate professor at the Peter T Paul College of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire.

00:02:11:08 - 00:02:45:14
Kevin Eikenberry
As an internationally recognized leadership and team performance expert, she advises leaders and teams at over a dozen fortune 500 and Global Fortune 500 companies. Her bestselling Harvard Business Review article with Stephen B Wolff on emotionally intelligent teams has been chosen six times for inclusion in collections of HBR Most Valuable and Valued articles. She's a recipient of multiple research and teaching awards, and she is the author of the Emotionally Intelligent Team Building Collaborative Groups That Outperform the Rest.

00:02:45:16 - 00:02:48:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Vanessa, welcome. Glad you're here.

00:02:48:23 - 00:02:53:22
Vanessa Druskat
Thank you. Kevin, is is pure pleasure to be here with you today and your audience.

00:02:54:00 - 00:03:09:03
Kevin Eikenberry
So let's start here. Let's start with I'm guessing now I know that you moved around a lot as a kid because I read that in the book. I'm going to get to that in a second. But I'm guessing when you were, I don't know, eight, you probably didn't think I'm going to be a professor and write books.

00:03:09:05 - 00:03:18:03
Kevin Eikenberry
So tell us just a little bit about the journey as it relates to how you ended up here writing this book and having this conversation?

00:03:18:05 - 00:03:47:09
Vanessa Druskat
Sure. Sure. Well, when I was young, I was an athlete and had the opportunity to be in a lot of different teams. I also started work very young. I lived in a farming community and I started working on farms at the age of 12, and we I worked in teams on farms. So we would, you know, pick asparagus or cucumbers or squash or whatever we were doing, and we worked together.

00:03:47:09 - 00:04:09:05
Vanessa Druskat
We helped one another, you know, and I looked forward as much as work was hard, I always look forward to being with people. But when I got to the workplace, it's a whole different story. People were competing with one another. I didn't feel like people were lifting me up anymore, supporting me. I felt like they were trying to trip me up, or just ignoring me or treating me like I was invisible.

00:04:09:07 - 00:04:35:19
Vanessa Druskat
So I started to get interested in teams because I'd always love them so much. And when I got to school, I have three degrees in psychology, and in every one of those degrees I focused on teams. I, but I was very disappointed with what I read. Everything about teams was about personalities and skills. And if you just had these interpersonal skills, everybody would be fine.

00:04:35:19 - 00:05:08:08
Vanessa Druskat
And the team or this, you know, agreeable personalities, your conscientious personalities will make for a great team. Well, that's wasn't my experience. My experience was that I would be more conscientious or more agreeable if I felt like the people around me were. And if we were lifting one another up. So I started thinking about my history. And, I grew up in a family that moved a lot, and my father and my mother were both international teachers, international educators.

00:05:08:10 - 00:05:25:20
Vanessa Druskat
And so we moved from culture to culture when I was a child. And I noticed that in every culture, you had to adapt your behavior to be a different person. So one of the stories I talk about, frequently is when we were in Kenya, I started school in Kenya, and I won a road race for.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:27:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Picking asparagus in Kenya. I'm just saying.

00:05:27:20 - 00:05:49:08
Vanessa Druskat
No, I wasn't picking asparagus. That was being done heavily. Massachusetts. So in in Kenya, though, I was, you know, I was always competitive. Competitive. And I loved to run. And I won this race. I started jumping up and down, and the headmaster came over and said, you know, we don't celebrate like that. That's not how we do it here.

00:05:49:10 - 00:06:17:03
Vanessa Druskat
And so I learned from a young age that you adapted your behavior in different environments. And I took that lens to the study of teams. And the first large study I did was in a manufacturer organization in North Carolina, and they had 300 teams. And I could literally go from team to team and see different mini cultures in every one of those teams.

00:06:17:05 - 00:06:22:02
Vanessa Druskat
And really it was this is the way we do it around here. And just by.

00:06:22:02 - 00:06:25:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Definition of culture, by the way, the way we do things around here, that's the.

00:06:25:22 - 00:06:57:13
Vanessa Druskat
Way we do. Yes. Thank you for that. I think it's sometimes it's hard for people to wrap their hands around it because they always think it's about the individuals. But every team has a different way of operating. So anyway, long story short, I got very interested in learning about what the very best teams did in their culture. And so I then took my research, you know, got my my PhD in this kind of stuff, had some phenomenal mentors, which I can tell you about that helped me with this.

00:06:57:15 - 00:07:20:17
Vanessa Druskat
And I, built a model of what the cultures look like in the tippity top teams in a lot of organizations. And the way I determined that was by studying the best, always the highest performers, you know, and, you know, we would measure things, percentage of goal met or whatever, whatever how they over the organization, measure performance.

00:07:20:19 - 00:07:51:14
Vanessa Druskat
And then I would look at typical performers like your average team. So teams that did fine but not great. And I said, what is it that the greats do that the average is don't do? That is the core of my, my, my, my models that I present in the book. It's, we labeled it team emotional intelligence because when we dug into it, what we found is that what these great teams did was they met the needs of the individuals and the team.

00:07:51:16 - 00:08:07:04
Vanessa Druskat
So they built trust. They built psychological safety, they built collaboration. And it was all about the routines and the habits and the ways the team worked together.

00:08:07:06 - 00:08:25:18
Kevin Eikenberry
We we talk more about the model in a little bit. But I want to I want to talk about a couple other things before we get there. So this this phrase, emotional intelligence, I guess it's been around a while. And, popularized by the guy who wrote the foreword to your book, which is pretty darn cool.

00:08:25:20 - 00:08:51:02
Kevin Eikenberry
But, my question is, I sort of hinted at this in the open, like, what is the difference? Or like, how are they? Well, let me ask, but let me ask a different question first. Are we just talking about culture? You and I have both used that word now. Is it is is this just another way to look at culture?

00:08:51:04 - 00:09:11:12
Vanessa Druskat
Well, I do, I do think it's another way to look at culture. I mean, first of all, let me say we often talk about organizational culture, which is important. But every team has what sociologists call a local culture. And it's really that local culture, you know, it's the way things happen in that and the people around you, the conversations, how we treat one another.

00:09:11:15 - 00:09:35:17
Vanessa Druskat
Do we listen? Do we not listen? Do we acknowledge one another? That kind of thing? And, so yes, it's it's culture, but what I do is I share with leaders what goes on in the cultures of the greats. And it's not rocket science. Any anyone can take this on. You know, we it's really not rocket science.

00:09:35:17 - 00:09:41:11
Vanessa Druskat
It's just we don't usually do this because we don't teach leaders how to build culture.

00:09:41:13 - 00:10:04:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So you said that sociology self I call it local culture. We call it we talk about macro culture and micro culture. Sure. Great, great, great. Which is exactly the same thing. And so it leads to it. A question that I'm sure you get asked all the time, which is because, a lot of people are already listening to this and say, man, my CEO needs to read her book.

00:10:04:11 - 00:10:24:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Like they need to talk about this. The like that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to them. And I would say it belongs to all of you, including everyone, whether you're a leader or not. But like, what's your take on that and what's your thought about that as it relates to the fact that the micro or local culture is connected to the bigger one, but it's not the same as.

00:10:24:05 - 00:10:34:03
Kevin Eikenberry
So what's the role of the leader in making all of this happen? We're moving the ball forward around it.

00:10:34:05 - 00:11:04:19
Vanessa Druskat
Sure. So let me just say this. In an ideal world and this happens very infrequently, I get to start by working with the CEOs leadership team. And I have worked with some CEO leadership teams. And then we trigger them. Right. But that's unusual. Typically I get a call from someone who is having, you know, a, a leader who's self-aware enough to know that their team's not meeting their potential or leader who says, I've got problems, I don't know what's going on.

00:11:05:00 - 00:11:32:18
Vanessa Druskat
So I come in at the middle of the organization, and I just want to say this. You have an outside culture, but you can adapt. You can create the culture that you want inside your team, and that is your responsibility. And let me say one more thing about this. There's a neuroscientist named Lisa Feldman Barrett at Northeastern University, in Boston, and she says, you know, the human superpower.

00:11:32:20 - 00:11:56:13
Vanessa Druskat
What differentiates humans from other animals is that we're not born with instincts. We're born social learners, and we learn the cultures that we're in. But here's the superpower we can build the culture the best meets our needs. We don't have to just take the culture we're in. We can adapt and create a new culture. And that's how you build an emotional intelligence team.

00:11:56:13 - 00:11:58:05
Vanessa Druskat
If you don't already have one.

00:11:58:07 - 00:12:18:00
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that. So, before we get to the model and the clusters, I want to get there. But there's one other thing. Well, there's a couple other things. One is you say something early in the book that's, I think, worth you unpacking for us all. Sure. And you say that teams are systems. Yeah. Like everyone probably would say.

00:12:18:00 - 00:12:26:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. But, like, I think that you can give us a new and different perspective on that, that teams our systems. Tell me what you mean.

00:12:26:23 - 00:12:46:17
Vanessa Druskat
Yes. So let me boil this down to something that's easy, easy to understand. Teams are about interactions. Any system is about interactions. So let's just talk about I'm just going to compare for a moment. I don't want to bore your audience, but we can talk about the the a motor which is also a system like a motor in your car.

00:12:46:19 - 00:13:14:15
Vanessa Druskat
And you know, it's all about the interactions, the pieces interacting that make the car run. Teams are human systems, and it's also all about the interactions. So you say something, I hear it, I react to that. We pass things back and forth. The leader says something, we all react to it. It's always about the interaction. But this is where you want to introduce the idea of emotions to you and your audience.

00:13:14:17 - 00:13:44:20
Vanessa Druskat
Every interaction involves an exchange of emotion. So when I say something to Kevin and he reacts negatively to me about that, it affects every other interaction that goes on in the team. And so human systems are emotional systems. And so if you will, let me just break out of that for a second, that doesn't mean you have to agree with everything I say.

00:13:44:20 - 00:14:08:17
Vanessa Druskat
What that means is that in that system somewhere, you need to tell me that you care about me and respect me. Kevin. So I know I'm respected by you. And when you disagree with me, I'm like, okay, yeah, Kevin, you know, we're friends whom disagree with me all you want. And the interactions will continue you to be effective and productive.

00:14:08:19 - 00:14:34:09
Vanessa Druskat
What you don't want is a system where when you interact with me, it closes me down. And then I don't speak again. All right. We have that kind of a conflict. And so emotionally intelligent teams build a culture of meeting one another, social needs so that they can have disagreements, arguments, conflicts that end up being productive. I hope that's not too much on one cell.

00:14:34:10 - 00:14:47:04
Kevin Eikenberry
No, not not at all. We we had a question, that I think is connected here. And if it'll pop up there, there is, how can first principles help us in this regard? Do you have thoughts about that?

00:14:47:06 - 00:14:49:23
Vanessa Druskat
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by first principles.

00:14:50:01 - 00:15:17:17
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm not sure what he means either. So if he responds and helps us, we'll we'll play with that a little bit more. But for now, I want to go on and have you talk about the model itself. The the model is a set of norms, based on three. You call them clusters. So, tell us, tell us a little bit more about those clusters and, and what we need to know about those.

00:15:17:19 - 00:15:41:16
Vanessa Druskat
You bet, you bet. So before I do that, I want to come back to one thing about about, about systems and why we need to think of it that way. Teamwork is all about the interactions among the people in the team. And I don't think that leaders realize that to build a good team, you have to build good routine interactions within the team.

00:15:41:17 - 00:16:02:03
Vanessa Druskat
So when I talk about norms, I'm talking about routine habits, the ways we interact, for example, do people listen to one another when they're interacting or are they on their computers? You know, that kind of thing. So anyway, I just want to make that clear. First of all, now let me get to the buckets of norms. So there's three I call them buckets.

00:16:02:03 - 00:16:28:07
Vanessa Druskat
I call them categories. But there's three main categories of norms that the great teams engage in. The first category we call helping one another succeed. This is the category about caring for the individuals in the team. So we've known for 75 years that if you don't take care of the individuals, they're going to create problems. And that's because teams are emotional systems.

00:16:28:09 - 00:16:51:19
Vanessa Druskat
So if I don't get to know you and respect you, understand, you build a relationship with you. Basically, I'm not going to be able to fully utilize your talent in the team. That's what the first bucket is about. And it is probably the most important bucket in the model because team leaders so often ignore it. The great teams don't.

00:16:51:20 - 00:17:13:05
Vanessa Druskat
So I can come back to that. I would like to be able to, say more about that bucket because it's something that I don't think most leaders understand. They think it's a soft thing. It's not. Second bucket is about how we interact when we're together. Do we talk about problems? Do we talk about solutions? Do we open up, an analysis of how we're doing?

00:17:13:08 - 00:17:34:09
Vanessa Druskat
Do we get all the brains, you know, on the topic and all aligned? So there's a set of four norms in that second bucket that is about how we interact together, how we build, how we continually focus on improvement. So this is very task. And I just want to say that emotionally intelligent teams get the task done with flying colors.

00:17:34:11 - 00:18:02:03
Vanessa Druskat
They are focused on the task because they bring all the individuals along. They do a really good job with it. Third bucket is about reaching outside of the team to get ideas and information and resources that are going to improve your process. So if you will, the to the bucket number one and bucket number three serve bucket number two, which is about the task.

00:18:02:08 - 00:18:10:13
Vanessa Druskat
All right. So let me stop there and ask for your follow up. And I'll dive into any of those you want me to do.

00:18:10:15 - 00:18:28:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Well we could spend the rest of our time on all, on any of them. And I want to spend a little time on the last one before we're done. I think people will probably guess the answer to this question, but we have to talk about, like, where we worship. I have brand new team. Right.

00:18:28:09 - 00:18:43:16
Kevin Eikenberry
When a question just came in relates to this idea of, I've got a new team, where do I start? Yes. And even if and I think the answer is the same, even if I have an existing team, where do I start? But where amongst all of this, should I begin? If I'm the. If I'm the leader.

00:18:43:18 - 00:19:05:01
Vanessa Druskat
Yeah. Great. If if you've got a new team, your goal. Because let me just tell you that in the very first meeting of a team, norms begin to emerge. You know how we're going to do it around here starts to emerge. Typically, what happens is we look to the leader and the informal leaders, the people with status in the group, and we just follow what they do.

00:19:05:02 - 00:19:18:06
Vanessa Druskat
You know, there's often a little balking at that, but it's typically, all the research shows that it's the informal leaders in the leader who define what the norms are, which is not a great way to go, because those are basic, which is really lucky.

00:19:18:08 - 00:19:19:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Right?

00:19:19:08 - 00:19:49:01
Vanessa Druskat
Yes. So, what you want to do when you start off is come up with norms that serve everyone. Everyone in there, in your team is going to have past experiences and teams. What happened in those best team experiences? I personally like to start with the model we've got in the in the emotional intelligence team in the book that we've been using for years, and I say, here's a nine norms that we know are best practice norms a great teams use.

00:19:49:07 - 00:20:07:21
Vanessa Druskat
Which of these do you think we want to incorporate into our into our way of operating. So once the team selects the norms that it wants, you going to hold them to, that lots of, you know, kickoff for meetings. You know, we launch the team by coming up with ground rules or norms and then we forget them.

00:20:07:21 - 00:20:10:06
Vanessa Druskat
We never do them again. And they don't really.

00:20:10:12 - 00:20:14:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Have the same ones for every team in their on the wall in the conference room.

00:20:14:05 - 00:20:33:10
Vanessa Druskat
Yes. And they don't really get used. Okay. I'm talking about different kind of norms. I'm talking about norms that you're actually going to use because you will have a culture, whether you like it or not, whether you control it or not, and whether that's a culture that produces high performance depends on the norms in the room, depends on how people interact.

00:20:33:12 - 00:20:57:03
Kevin Eikenberry
100% I love and it's I want to underline for everyone who's listening, the point of Vanessa saying it's is if if we don't create them, they will create themselves. And so we can they belong to us. One of the reasons the ones on the wall don't work is they're on ours. They're just they're sterile. That they didn't come through a conversation that we had.

00:20:57:05 - 00:20:59:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Yes. That led us to a mutual understanding.

00:21:00:01 - 00:21:21:11
Vanessa Druskat
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. A mutual understanding is critical. And control is critical. So one of our social needs is to have a sense of control over what goes on on the team. Everyone really wants that sense of control. And when they don't feel that control, that's a lot of bad behavior comes about in teams because people feel like they have no control over what's going on.

00:21:21:13 - 00:21:36:02
Vanessa Druskat
So anyway, yes, you want to give that to them, but what you want to do is develop a set of norms that you're going to keep for a month. You're going to hold people to that for a month. You've got permission as the leader to hold people to that. And then after a month, you evaluate how's it going?

00:21:36:02 - 00:21:51:00
Vanessa Druskat
What do we need to change? Okay. So that's that's what I do when I launch a team. And typically what happens is in a month, people say, hey, you, we're not really sticking to those norms, are we? What are we sticking to? You know, that's where you evaluate what are we doing relative to what we want to do.

00:21:51:04 - 00:22:12:11
Vanessa Druskat
And then you then you start rolling with with the change in the team when you're not launching a team. Once again, I what I advise is that you evaluate what your norms are. You know, the book includes a really quick survey that you can use to kind of look at what the norms are, you know, in the of the nine norms, are these best practices that we know the great teams use.

00:22:12:13 - 00:22:34:16
Vanessa Druskat
You can, just assess where are we on each of these? It's a great conversation starter. And which of these do we want to incorporate? And so what I always do when I work with teams is we do a baseline assessment. What are our current norms? How are they working for you folks? And you don't only listen to the leaders, the informal leaders and leaders because they belong already.

00:22:34:22 - 00:23:01:04
Vanessa Druskat
The norms work for them, which typically happens in your average team, is that those folks participate a lot and everyone listens to them and they're afraid to to disagree. Or it's just easier to get along, go along to get along. Why make waves? You're going to make enemies, blah, blah, blah. But when we evaluate those norms, what we find is there's a there's a whole country of people for whom those norms are not serving them.

00:23:01:04 - 00:23:22:14
Vanessa Druskat
Well, you know, I'm not listened to whenever I talk. Let me give you an example. I have a colleague who worked at a very prominent organization, and she was a relatively new team member. And the team leader used to take note of what people were saying. But every time she talked, the leader would stop taking notes. What's the message there?

00:23:22:16 - 00:23:46:11
Vanessa Druskat
Right. What you say just doesn't matter. Yeah, it's a circle of a whole bunch of frustration for her. Do you think she was she shared her best skills in that team. No. And the biggest difference between the high performers in the average performance is whether or not you're using all the skills and talents in the team, and so you what?

00:23:46:12 - 00:23:49:07
Vanessa Druskat
You. Yeah. Anyway, let me stop and let you see if you look, I was going.

00:23:49:07 - 00:24:10:18
Kevin Eikenberry
To say that in that example that just showed shared, the intention of that leader might not have been that at all, but that's, you know, and that takes us to being emotionally intelligent ourselves, recognizing how are we are how what we're doing is showing up in this and the and the message is it's sending intentional or not like that that leader.

00:24:11:00 - 00:24:21:20
Kevin Eikenberry
It could have absolutely meant exactly how you're your colleague viewed it. And no disrespect that that's how they viewed it. That doesn't necessarily mean that's what the leader intended.

00:24:21:20 - 00:24:23:06
Vanessa Druskat
Exactly.

00:24:23:08 - 00:24:27:12
Kevin Eikenberry
That's you can simply then someone else shouldn't be taking the darned notes, right?

00:24:27:13 - 00:24:28:01
Vanessa Druskat
Yeah.

00:24:28:03 - 00:24:30:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So, I just.

00:24:30:14 - 00:24:31:03
Vanessa Druskat
I saw.

00:24:31:03 - 00:24:36:18
Kevin Eikenberry
You talk about those kinds of things because people go, yes, and then we lose the critical.

00:24:36:19 - 00:24:54:17
Vanessa Druskat
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm glad you said I'm just going to stop you because I want to keep talking about this. These nonverbals are critical. So let's come back from the leader to the people. And what what we you know, what's going on in there. So as soon as let's just come back to my colleague, you know, we'll call her, Frances.

00:24:54:19 - 00:25:23:22
Vanessa Druskat
Frances starts talking. Team. Remember, number one picks up their phone and says, oh, Frances is talking. Now's the time to answer my my texts. Okay, I got to tell you, Frances never misses that. No one ever misses those novels. And or Frances will start or everybody else to start looking at their notes. Or we said, this is where it comes to the norms in the team is the norm, that we're going to listen to everyone in the leader.

00:25:24:01 - 00:25:53:02
Vanessa Druskat
This is the leaders holding the norms, leaders holding the culture. All right. We're all focusing on, Frances and whoever speaking at the time. So let me give you an example of of a team that we worked with were that changed everything. This team of engineers, very masculine, all men. And, they were performing poorly, very high level in the organization, but they're there, so let's call it a region was performing poorly.

00:25:53:04 - 00:26:17:14
Vanessa Druskat
Their team leader got fired because of it. New team leader brings us in and says, how am I going to get these angry masculine engineers to start working together and focus on what what what what we're doing? We bring them into the room. We measure their norms. They're not respecting one another. They're not treating one another well. So we talked to them about that.

00:26:17:14 - 00:26:46:09
Vanessa Druskat
They decide what they're going to do. And it was a joke when they started. It was that when everyone started talking, they would look at them in the eye and they would nod their head, oh, Kevin. Interesting, right? That small nonverbal behavior meant that people started talking more, caring more. And when that person started sharing more ideas, someone else started sharing more ideas.

00:26:46:09 - 00:27:08:18
Vanessa Druskat
The head nods continued the Nonverbals started the ball rolling. I got to tell you, they started helping one another because they're we're all here. They're all leaders of their own areas and they needed help. Each one needed help. They started helping one another and as a team just took off. And within six months, I mean, they also changed a couple of other things.

00:27:08:18 - 00:27:31:03
Vanessa Druskat
They did some of the things that were in the middle bucket, which were really about, again, aligning one another and focusing on the task. But, they're the nonverbal tools matter. We are wired to pay attention to those nonverbals. And if you're sending negative nonverbals to some people, you're closing down. You're not hearing from them specifically.

00:27:31:05 - 00:27:51:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Especially if you have that title. Even more so if you have the title, which most of you do here. Although although everyone that's listening, you know, recognize that, don't just think about this for the team that you might be leading. But if you're a leader, unless it's unless it's a very small organization, you are also members of teams as well as the leader of a team.

00:27:51:15 - 00:28:07:01
Kevin Eikenberry
So both hats need to be considered and worn at all times. There's there's so many things, Vanessa, that we could talk about. We can't get to all the stuff I wanted to, but there's two things I do want to, maybe three that I want to talk about real quick, real quickly if we can. One is in the last bucket or cluster.

00:28:07:01 - 00:28:28:06
Kevin Eikenberry
You talk about, team context and, and the and outside of the organization, like you talk about, you know, how we interact and what's the connection to the world outside of our team. I think that too often that really does get missed. And so talk about that just for a second, because this is really important stuff.

00:28:28:08 - 00:29:02:21
Vanessa Druskat
Sure. Yeah. This is work originally that was done by a woman that I made it called Deborah and not called. That's her name, Deborah Ancona. Professor. Brilliant woman. Excuse me. She rocked the team world when she said, you know, a lot of the work that a team needs to do is reach outside. You need to send ambassadors out to talk to your clients or your customers, to talk to your boss's boss, to talk to creative people in other industries that are doing similar, similar kind of work of and bring that information in.

00:29:02:21 - 00:29:24:22
Vanessa Druskat
And that's going to make you high performing. So when I discovered the same thing, I remember bumping into her at a conference once and she said, why is everyone talking about this besides you and me? Because you want to have a creative team. You want to have a team that really meets your customer's needs or that is anticipating them before they occur.

00:29:25:00 - 00:29:41:18
Vanessa Druskat
Then you need to have ambassadors who go out and bring that information in. And I'll tell you, team members love this norm. They connect, they learn, everybody learns. You got to bring the information back and share it with the team. When you're back in that middle bucket, let me that's.

00:29:41:20 - 00:30:10:22
Kevin Eikenberry
So important having that context. Otherwise you know we all know the challenge of having blinders personally and fundamentally this is how we end up creating blinders for our teams. Silos in our organization. Yes. So so optimizing everything you get, you head down to it right. So if people are listening to our conversation, we're talking about collaboration. We're talking about groups, we're talking about emotionally intelligent teams.

00:30:10:23 - 00:30:41:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Many people are asking this question that I will just not verbalize. How is this different in a post-Covid world? What what would you say to those who are leading a hybrid or remote team, which fundamentally is many of us, right, regardless of what popular press is saying? What what would be 1 or 2 quick things you would say for us to think about as this relates to when our team is not all together every day.

00:30:41:09 - 00:31:05:08
Vanessa Druskat
I want to say, before I give you the the answer to that, I want to just say one other piece, that thing that we learned during the Covid pandemic, which was we really learned how much belonging mattered to people, how much respect everything. So let me just define belonging for you, which is the need to feel known, valued and mutually supported.

00:31:05:10 - 00:31:30:16
Vanessa Druskat
So you got to think of your team as a container that's going to hold people, with care in that container, care about them, give them feedback because care about their development. So we really learned that when you're not doing that, people leave or they say they're in, but they're really checked out. I can tell you there's a lot of team members that I meet that are really checked out.

00:31:30:17 - 00:32:03:21
Vanessa Druskat
All right. So let's now let's talk about the remote and hybrid teams and what you do with that situation. The biggest problem you have with that and all the data is, is showing that you weaken relationships. You weaken collaboration, you weaken knowledge sharing. Okay. So you don't interact is often when you are psychologically destroy from people. It turns out that when you're physically separated, you're psychologically more separated.

00:32:03:23 - 00:32:24:23
Vanessa Druskat
And in fact, Kevin, if you were over in South Africa right now and I was in New Hampshire, where I am, I would really feel psychologically different. I'd be a lot less likely to contact you. We at a time distance anyway. But just the psychological distance creates emotional separation. All right. So you got to overcome that.

00:32:25:01 - 00:32:31:00
Kevin Eikenberry
The leaders have to we have to consciously work to overcome that. Because if we don't, it's me.

00:32:31:02 - 00:32:50:14
Vanessa Druskat
Bingo. Thank you for, for for clarifying that your norm, you have to be so much more intentional about the norms that you create and what you what you do, the routines that you create. So, for example, doing a check in, I don't know whether or not we've talked about, I don't think we've talked about check ins.

00:32:50:14 - 00:33:06:12
Vanessa Druskat
You I haven't really talked about how you get people in the room when you're doing when you're having a meeting, but building that first of feeling need to be known. The great teams I've never met, a great team that doesn't do a check in when it starts its meeting. And the check in can be often in the great teams.

00:33:06:12 - 00:33:28:23
Vanessa Druskat
It's about what's on your mind. What have you learned in the last week? What? What are you? What's keeping you up at night right now? What's you know what's happening in the team? You got 30s go when you go around and you hear everyone in the room. All right, well, when you're distant, that's even more important. Maybe you can make that check in 45 seconds rather than 30 seconds.

00:33:29:00 - 00:33:50:19
Vanessa Druskat
But you need to know what's going on. You need because that helps you feel like you belong. You peel the onion of who this person is. So now I know Kevin a little bit better. And, everyone says and the research shows that that matters more and you have the opportunity to learn more about one another when you're distant because you're more likely to ask questions, you know?

00:33:50:20 - 00:33:52:09
Vanessa Druskat
So what's it like?

00:33:52:11 - 00:34:04:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Let me just add that that's true in your team meeting and also in your one on ones. And just like in the team meeting, that needs to be the first thing you do needs to be the first thing you do in your one on ones as well. In my.

00:34:04:18 - 00:34:13:08
Vanessa Druskat
Oh, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that. Sure. That's in your it's in your awesome book, which I'm going to get a copy of that. I've seen it.

00:34:13:10 - 00:34:27:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So I want to shift gears and talk about a couple things I like to always talk about with my guests. And the first is this Vanessa, what do you do for fun?

00:34:27:15 - 00:34:55:08
Vanessa Druskat
Fun? I'm an outdoor person. I like to be outside, and I like to be with friends. So I live in this gorgeous state of New Hampshire, which is, cold most of the time. But we have beautiful mountains. We're, we're on the ocean. We have, you know, outdoor, outdoor skiing and swimming and hiking, and that's what I do for fun.

00:34:55:10 - 00:34:57:12
Vanessa Druskat
How about you? What do you do for fun, Kevin?

00:34:57:14 - 00:35:15:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I do all sorts. This is one of the things I do for fun. Okay? Really smart people. But, we have something else in common. And that is that we have a farm background. I have picked the first time I picked cucumbers in a field. Not like in a garden. In a field. I was six. Oh, my goodness.

00:35:15:23 - 00:35:33:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I need to have that conversation today. But anyway, let me, let me ask you my other question. Looks like I stole there, back, let me ask my other question I want to ask before we go, two more things. Here's one. What are you reading these days?

00:35:33:16 - 00:35:58:11
Vanessa Druskat
What are the books I'm reading? Well, I'm always the book that I have open all the time is a book called Social by Matthew Lieberman. And he's a social neuroscientist at UCLA. And he, his research is on how how we're wired to be social. And that so much of, of what we're wired to do is collaborate, cooperate, and how we get a high.

00:35:58:11 - 00:36:34:22
Vanessa Druskat
When we do that, we do it well. And so I just love to read all the nuances. I mean, I can't get enough when I give presentations. I quote him constantly. The other book I'm, I'm reading and I've got to read the title once I got it right here. Both. And I think Wendy Smith is one of the authors, and it talks about paradoxes and, and one of the things we've always known about teamwork is that their teamwork is filled with paradoxes that can't be solved, which is you got to honor the individual and you gotta honor the team.

00:36:35:00 - 00:36:52:13
Vanessa Druskat
You are the individual and the collective, and it can feel like a paradox. You mean you got to do both at the same time? Yes. It's a tension you always have to manage. And leaders are faced with a number of paradoxes like that. Oh, you got it. Brilliant. Look at that. Look at all.

00:36:52:13 - 00:36:57:02
Kevin Eikenberry
The growth and thinking by Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis. And they have been on the show and we will have.

00:36:57:02 - 00:36:58:02
Vanessa Druskat
Oh they have.

00:36:58:04 - 00:37:08:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I, it was right here. If you're watching you can see that I've been there, and they've been on the show. We'll have, we'll put in the show notes. They're, they're, they're podcast as well.

00:37:08:10 - 00:37:09:20
Vanessa Druskat
Super.

00:37:09:22 - 00:37:10:15
Kevin Eikenberry
It's a great.

00:37:10:15 - 00:37:24:11
Vanessa Druskat
Book for team leaders. It's a great book because there are some things you just have to remember that it's a paradox. And you're going to have to do both both and and there's not one that's more important than the other.

00:37:24:13 - 00:37:43:11
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're heading in the direction of, the ideas in the book Flexible Leadership, as it turns out. But before we go, the thing you most wanted me to ask you, Vanessa, this entire conversation is where can people find out more about the book? Where can they learn more about you? Where do you want to point people before we start to wrap up?

00:37:43:13 - 00:38:06:02
Vanessa Druskat
You bet! This place to reach me is on my website. It's Vanessa dress cat.com and I am going to be continually putting resources on that show. For example, I have the the quick survey that's in the book. I have a copy of that on, on the, on the website that you're welcome to download and some other resources. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

00:38:06:02 - 00:38:31:22
Vanessa Druskat
I'd love to have you copy me, or contact with me on LinkedIn because I, I post a lot. I have, and there's so many other great researchers out there whose work I want to share with you. You know, my mission has been to take what researchers know about teams and share it with the public, because, you know, people don't too often, academics don't get rewarded for doing that.

00:38:31:22 - 00:38:50:04
Vanessa Druskat
And there's so much we know about research, including research on culture and teamwork and, you know, leadership, like like your book, like styles. You mean you got to adapt your style? We've known that for decades. Why aren't people doing that right? We need to share that information. And I share that on my LinkedIn posts all the time.

00:38:50:04 - 00:38:54:02
Vanessa Druskat
So please connect with me on LinkedIn and go to my website.

00:38:54:04 - 00:39:15:01
Kevin Eikenberry
That is a triscuit.com. Before we go, everyone, the question that I need to ask all of you who are watching or listening is this. It's the question I ask you every single episode. If you've been here before you followed along, you know that I'm about to ask you now what? What are you going to do now? Now, obviously we'd love for you to go buy a copy of Vanessa's book, but it's more than just that.

00:39:15:01 - 00:39:44:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, what ideas did you get today? Not intellectual ideas or insights, but what action will you take as a result of being here? Because it is that action that you take that will act at the end of the day, make a difference, otherwise nothing's gonna change. And if you want to have a more emotionally intelligent team, if you want to be more collaborative, if you want to, make a difference for your team, whether it's in your nonverbals or whatever it is, then, you need to think about what action will you take?

00:39:44:15 - 00:40:05:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Because without taking action, this will have been a far less valuable or useful use of your time, if you will. So I want to thank you again, Vanessa, for being here. It was such a pleasure to have you. I want to thank all of you who have joined us for joining us. And if you're with us for the first time, make sure it's not the last time.

00:40:05:20 - 00:40:19:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And the way to do that is to make sure that you subscribe wherever you are watching or consuming this content, to make sure that you're back next week. Because next week we'll be back with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:40:19:12 - 00:40:22:15
Vanessa Druskat
Thank you, Kevin, my pleasure to be here with you and your audience.