After an extremely turbulent and disruptive year, Episode 13 of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, sees your host, Andy Goram of Bizjuicer, chatting to Andrew Deighton of AWD Development Solutions about how businesses can practically set about re-establishing their teams and their culture.
Andrew is the author of the book The Exceptional Team Blueprint, and whilst not plugging that, he openly talks through some of his experiences of working in teams and working for strong team leaders which resulted in many of the techniques Andrew uses with clients today to help them engage their people, build solid teams and enabling cultures.
Below is a full transcript of this episode.
00:00:00 Andy Goram
Hello and welcome to sticky from the inside. The Employee Engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing, consistently successful organisations, from the inside out.
I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tonnes more success for everyone.
This podcast is for all those who believe that’s something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses. The sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.
So, if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
00:01:10 Andy Goram
OK, after a difficult and different year, businesses and their teams are starting to come back together and re-establishing those team dynamics that make up a company’s culture is going to be a commonplace activity for many. Well, today I'm joined by someone who helps businesses just do that. He's even written a book on the topic called the Exceptional Team Blueprint. But typical of the guy I know, he's not here to plug that, but he's just going to share some of his experiences on the practical things that you can do to get the band back together and humming.
So let me introduce you to Andrew Deighton. Hi Andrew, how are you mate?
00:01:55 Andrew Deighton
Hi Andy, I'm good. Thank you. It’s great to be here.
00:01:57 Andy Goram
Welcome to Sticky Studios, my friend.
00:02:00 Andrew Deighton
Thank you.
00:02:01 Andy Goram
So I mean, I know you, my viewers, really might not know you, so just give us a little bit of an insight into Andrew’s world and what you do and where all that's come from.
00:02:13 Andrew Deighton
Yes, I’m a people and team development specialist. I really started my career at Rolls Royce. Did 26 years there and then took voluntary redundancy and really took the opportunity to set up my own business because, I thought if I don't try it I'll look back and potentially regret it. And really to focus on the bits of the job that I enjoyed doing and not focus on the bits that I didn't enjoy so I could really focus on those things around, particularly team development.
So, I work with businesses to put strategy, process, solutions in place around people development in its broadest sense. But particularly I really like the team development side of things. So that's what I focus on primarily in the business now.
00:03:03 Andy Goram
Hey look, if we all got to choose to do the things we just love doing, the world will be a much better place.
00:03:08 Andrew Deighton
Yes, absolutely.
00:03:09 Andy Goram
So, taking full advantage of that situation makes a lot of sense to me. But Rolls Royce? That's one hell of a company. What were you doing inside Rolls Royce?
00:03:19 Andrew Deighton
I started off in engineering, so my background originally was as a designer, designing jet engine parts so and then gradually I moved further away from that and into more training, HR-type positions. So, at various points I looked after the employee development side of the Marine Division, I was an HR director for a while. Again, the Marine services part and then my last substantive role before I left was running the early career team. So, looking after all the graduate and apprentice recruitment and selection, which was a brilliant job 'cause it was just so positive and focused on the future. So that was my main, big team leadership position. So, I looked after 50, had 50 people working for me and between us we looked after about 2000 trainees at any one time across the business, which was just great.
00:04:12 Andy Goram
Wow! I mean that's one hell of a change, mate, from design engineer to effectively HR practitioner, yeah.
00:04:20 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:20 Andy Goram
That's some journey.
00:04:22 Andrew Deighton
Absolutely, and I... you know when I started at Rolls Royce as an engineer, I thought I'd be in engineering for life, as a lot of people were at Rolls Royce, you know 30-40 years' service. But I never envisaged it. I think it's all about opportunities, Andy. When something comes along that you may never have thought about, just kind of say “yes” and see what happens. Because as I shifted out, I sort of knew that I could have gone back into engineering originally, I couldn't do it now at all, but I think it's about just balancing those risks and taking those opportunities.
00:04:58 Andy Goram
Hey, when opportunity presents itself to you, grab it with both hands. Absolutely. I'm a big fan of that. Is that where you... you got this love, passion, call it what you will, for all things, people, culture, team development? Was that always there before you made the move, or is it something that grew as you made the move?
00:05:17 Andrew Deighton
I, I think it's something that grew. Actually, I've never really thought about that, but I think it's something that grew. So, I've been a part of obviously as an engineer you're part of a team. I have to deliver my design in time for it to be made to be tested and so on. So that's that was my first kind of experience of being a team member. And then, as I moved into different roles, I worked for some really great team leaders, directors, project managers, whatever you call them. And then also later in my career, sort of moved into leadership positions myself as well, and really what I've done is, I've kind of taken those experiences and observations from watching what people do, that I think makes a really great team leader and kind of use those going forward.
So, it’s just gathering those experiences in those observations as well as a bit of sort of theory, shall we say as well. But I think what you said at the outset, “Make things work in practice” that's what matters to me.
00:06:19 Andy Goram
Yeah, I mean, I imagine the probably no finer place to get a good grounding in that stuff in a company like Rolls Royce, right?
00:06:27 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, it was brilliant. It's a great place to work.
00:06:30 Andy Goram
So, if it was something that this love grew whilst you were there, what were the things... Were there some standout moments and what were the sort of key lessons that you that you took out of, I guess, teamwork, in that organisation that you now help businesses with today?
00:06:46 Andrew Deighton
I think probably my first one was some was really my first HR Job, but knowing nothing about HR. So, they took a risk on me as an HR team leader for a new factory build, and this this factory was Greenfield. So, we had two years to basically build an operating factory from nothing. But it was very different at the time for Rolls Royce. It was new terms and conditions, new shift patterns, new reward systems. So, actually having, I suppose having no HR baggage, because I didn't know anything at the time, was an advantage, because I didn't kind of know what you could and couldn't do. And that was that was really, I think that the world my first experience of being part of a very, very focused project team with a really clear deliverable.
So, as I say, we had two years to get this factory working. I think that was really the foundation of a lot of the stuff that I've learned over time. You know, watching the... how the project director ran that team, informed a lot of the things that I still do today.
00:08:00 Andy Goram
What are those principles then that this project leader, I guess, instilled in you, that you try and help businesses with today? Because that sounds like a sort of a framework that that you've built on, right?
00:08:11 Andrew Deighton
Yeah. What he got us all to do was really think, “Why do I want to be on this team?” What's in it for me being a team member? And so, for me at the time, I had I had two young daughters. I had Twins and I was quite early in my career really, and I just made this shift from engineering into HR training sort of roles. And this was all about progression to be honest. For me, it was all about how can I provide better for my family. So being part of this team I could see I had a potentially quicker career progression. I was learning new stuff which I wanted to do as well. So, for me that those were the drivers.
It was a mix of the opportunity to do something new and Rolls Royce hadn't... this was a £40 million investment quite a long time ago, and Rolls Royce hadn't done anything like this. So, being part of something quite new and radical, actually, it was really interesting for me personally. But as I say from a career perspective, it felt the right thing to do as well.
00:09:20 Andy Goram
So, you were committed at this point then, weren't you? I mean, you had a real reason to sort of throw yourself into it.
00:09:22 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and then when things... and it was at times it was a really difficult project because, you know, we were closing an existing factory and we were recruiting specifically into the new factory, so there was some quite at times some quite difficult issues to deal with and quite a lot of bad feeling at times from obviously, I understand, from the affected population. So, when we had these downtimes, these really sort of low points, having that really personal reason for why I want to be part of this, it just helps you focus again and you know, gives you that kick to really to get on with it. You know so, so I think it's really important, if you can, we understand what's your driver for wanting to be part of this team?
00:10:12 Andy Goram
Yeah, I mean a lot of what we do is about making a personal connection, right? And this is no different. I mean if we think about what's going on, I guess in businesses all over the country, well, all over the world at the moment is people are slowly coming back. Businesses are opening up, people are coming back to offices, places of work, albeit maybe in some sort of part time or hybrid-type working. And you're going to be bringing people back together, who, all right, maybe via zoom or whatever have been “together”, but have been experiencing the last year very, very differently.
So, when you're thinking about building teams and well even rebuilding teams and rebuilding cultures based on the last year, this must be where your framework, your approach to teamwork team building culture definition must really come into its own right now.
00:11:17 Andrew Deighton
I think for a lot of organisations, obviously those who have had people out, as you say on furlough. So that maybe the more office-based who can work remotely or have had to furlough people. I think actually when they start to bring people back together It is kind of like forming a new team. Really starting from scratch in some instances. If people haven't had any connection for months, or you know potentially up to a year, it is really like starting again and building a team from nothing, potentially.
00:11:56 Andy Goram
So, if you if you're if you're looking at that and you're coming into a business. What are those... What are those steps then, Andrew? What are the steps that you work to, to establish or rebuild a team and set that up for success going forwards? Have you a process that you take businesses through? And what's that look like?
00:12:18 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, I've got a bit of a process that I use for these sorts of rebuild restarting sessions really. So, I think the first thing is, I just think it's really reconnecting people. So, there's kind of a bit of... almost a bit of icebreaking, a bit of energizing again. And as you would do with these weekly sort of icebreaker activities and just getting people to almost to socialise again, potentially. Because they may not have had that informal social contact that you get when you're working as part of a team as well, so it's kind of restarting those relationships first of all. So, forget the work side of things, just get people talking together again. And there’s lots of different things you can do, but if you can link it, going forwards to the business, people may well have picked up a lot of new skills whilst they've been working from home or not had other things to do. They may have tried new things and those skills could be things that could actually help the business. So, getting people just to say what have you learned as we've been locked down, something new that you've done, things like that, so just general icebreaking type activity. Just help people reconnect.
00:13:36 Andy Goram
Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because I think I saw a video or read something recently. It was some expert, and I used the term in inverted commas, was saying “Yep, for the first few weeks back at work there really shouldn't be any work. It should all be about, you know, getting back, getting to know each other, spending time... Now look, I mean, I think that's interesting. I'm not quite sure how practical that is for business to do? “Oh, we won't do any work for two weeks. We'll just all get together and love one another.”
00:14:08 Andrew Deighton
No.
00:14:09 Andy Goram
I mean, that's lovely, but I don't think it's practical. But I think the point... I think the point that is valid, and I guess, placed what you've just sort of said, is that that re-establishing connection with each other or establishing a connection with each other is really going to be a useful platform to build on. The stuff that people have been dealing with over the last year, there's plenty of opportunities for things to talk about and ways to connect.
00:14:33 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, I ran a team session last week actually, and there were a couple of people on the call who joined that team but had never met their colleagues. So they joined the team sort of during lockdown from an external organisation and just had never met either virtually or physically any of their colleagues. So, there's obviously a bit of time on that call, which was kind of them introducing themselves as well.
00:15:08 Andy Goram
So that's step one, right? So we've got, re-engage, I guess is that what you call it or...?
00:15:12 Andrew Deighton
It is, yeah, Re-engage, reconnect, re-energize. Get 'em working back together and I think all these steps that I take people through. You know you could do them in a 1/2 half days-type session, but your point about actually having to do some work as well. You know we were here to run a business and do some work on the business. I think you could spread these over a number of weeks, you know. Just pick up one of the steps per week and work on it. You don't need to do it all in one go. You can do some work as well, I think, at the same time as these things. So...
00:15:50 Andy Goram
Yeah, like a sort of phased approach to it all, absolutely.
00:15:52 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely yeah.
00:15:54 Andy Goram
So, what's next?
00:15:56 Andrew Deighton
So, I think the next stage that I think is really, really important to think about is the experiences that people have gone through, so people will have gone through all sorts of and potentially quite you know very, very difficult experiences. They may have lost people, they've had maybe the caring responsibilities, the home-schooling type responsibilities. People will have had a massive range of different experiences. And I think it's important where people want to, you can't, you shouldn't, I don't think you should force people to do this, but if they want to share those experiences so people understand what they've been through and where they're coming from, then I think it's important to give people an opportunity to do that.
So, I call this the sort of the review and reflect step. So, it's that recognition and acknowledgement for you as the team leader, as well as the team members you know, that's important for a bit of almost self-awareness, just to just to think about what they've been through, how people are feeling about returning to work. You may well have people who've worked all the way through, and their colleagues have been on furlough for 12 months, so there's potentially almost a bit of, “Well I've been here, and you know, you've been sat at home”, potentially, is their perception, you know. So I think the opportunity to raise those sort of concerns that people have got, or you know, a lot of people might be a bit nervous about going back into if they're going physically in, you know from a from a covid perspective, health and safety type perspective. People might be a bit fearful of that, so having that opportunity to raise concerns, but then about, “OK, what are you looking forward to?” as well. Shift it from like maybe the more negative side to the positive things and what have people learned from experience that actually... They reckon we’re something like five years ahead digital-working-wise than we would have been had this not happened. So, a lot of organisations have found some really great ways of working differently, so use those, take them forward, you know.
So, look back and say what have we learned, as an individual and also as a business and teams and so on. And what do we want to build on so you sort of moving from that? Historical experience to the to the present now.
00:18:22 Andy Goram
No, I think that's a really, really good point. I mean, this thing about, I guess people’s different experiences and, yeah you can look at the furlough and non-furloughed. I know from a lot of the work that that I've done. You know in the early days there was an awful lot of focus on the people who were not in the workplace or the offices and "Was everybody OK? Was it evrybody set up?”, almost to the, I guess, detriment of the guys who were still in the business. And I know from survey work that I've done with some clients that that Group felt almost forgotten and left behind and if we're honest, a bit resentful. And I think you can hear and read about similar things on the whole furlough thing. You know the guys who've been working in the business, hard, covering the gaps of the many people who unfortunately had to be furloughed, but who may be feeling a little, well, mixed about the whole thing. Yes, they were employed, fully working, great. All that kind of stuff, but probably quite isolated themselves from other teammates. May even felt like put upon, where over the fence that they can't really see, people are sitting back chilling, shaving their own heads and you know doing things in the back garden and repairing things in the house that they should have done for 10 years. That whole, I guess, furlough envy, if that's what it's called.
00:19:52 Andrew Deighton
Yeah.
00:19:53 Andy Goram
I mean, that's going to be quite a gnarly topic for some people to kind of get into. But your point is, you've got to get into it, right? You gotta get it out in the open.
00:20:00 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, I think I think so. I think that's important. Yeah, so those people have still had the same things going on at home, but they've not been there to, to maybe deal with them or help out and so on. So yeah, I think you're right. That will... Plus there may well have had to be redundancies and things, you know, so that team may have lost a few team members for business reasons, but and so again there might be a bit of this kind of guilt - Survivor Syndrome as well? I think there’s a lot of stuff that's just mixed together here.
00:20:35 Andy Goram
Absolutely, and then subsequent steps then that you would take in this journey?
00:20:42 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, so what I do then is once they've once they've thought about the experience and what actually the positive things that they can take forward in terms of how they work and processes and all sorts of things like that is really to get them to refocus on, “Has the strategy changed?” So, the business might have shifted its offerings, or it might have shifted how it delivers its offerings and has that strategy changed? And then what does that mean then to us as a team?
So, he kind of moving from the present to a bit of the future now and getting people to really refocus on and re-engage on what our deliverables are, what our challenges are and bring in a bit of the thing we were talking about earlier. What does it mean to me to be part of this team? How does it benefit me at a personal level at a career level and so on, in this new world potentially and start to think about what do we want to be different in the team now as we move forward? And what has to be, what needs to be different so you’re kind of getting people now to start to refocus on the future, and...
00:22:01 Andy Goram
Well, I think to your point earlier, right, this whole thing about putting people in the center of it, I mean that is a critical part of engagement. If you can't see yourself in it, then it's never going to engage you or change anything. And then this thing about having a clear idea of what the future looks like. Again, you know that strategic narrative for the business is incredibly important, and again another major part of forging a strong, engaged, culture. People knowing where we're going, and...
00:22:28 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, it's about that purpose.
00:22:31 Andy Goram
This is absolutely about that purpose. And as you've said, right at the start with your own personal journey this is an opportunity for businesses right now to potentially change and renovate some of the things that were happening, you know pre covid, that on reflection maybe could be improved, or maybe the last year has shown us opportunities to kind of say, “Well, actually we've worked in a different way. Now we're looking at different things. Let's up the ante. Let's make some of these changes.
You know, often people would love the world to stop, and so they could get off and change a few things. But you never get given that opportunity. And yet, in a positive sense, we have just been presented with that opportunity. And that's why I think your frameworks are great way for businesses to be able to sort of take that opportunity to improve going forwards. And involvement with their people and having a clear sense of going forward is really important for that, right?
00:23:29 Andrew Deighton
It is, yes. But that word “involvement”. Absolutely get people involved and engaged in it.
00:23:36 Andy Goram
So, we've got our team coming back together. We've got a sort of a framework to bring those teams in. But I guess your work takes on a wider view of culture as well. What are the sort of key lessons? I mean again, we can use the backdrop of the things that we're dealing with today, in that for you, how does one go about trying to put together a solid core culture that really works for the business?
00:24:08 Andrew Deighton
It comes down to ultimately how people behave. That's what sets the culture, I think, fundamentally. And if you almost work backwards from that.
00:24:22 Andrew Deighton
So you've got your, as we talked about a few minutes ago, you've got your purpose, or you've got your vision as to where you need the organisation or the team to go and then from that you set your values and so those could be corporate values, or I think you can have your own set of team values as well. Now obviously they shouldn't contradict the corporate values, but I think it's quite important to have a set of team level values.
This is how we are going to work together and then take that down to the behaviours level and so for each of those values that you define. So how if I walked into your team, how would I know you were operating to those values? What would I see? What would I hear and get the team members themselves to define those behaviours so they can almost, ultimately become almost self-policing, you know, so he can start to, you know, in a friendly and informal way you will often see them pull each other up on, “You're not demonstrating that value. You're not doing this because of your behaviour …" and it starts to become, I guess, kind of an embedded just the way of doing stuff.
00:25:37 Andy Goram
Like breathing right?
00:25:40 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, so having them set of almost behavioural statements, what will we see for each value? Not masses, just two or three for each one, and then people have got something to... they kind of know the expectations around the behaviours and that that sets the culture then so culture is ultimately just how people behave. How people do things.
00:26:03 Andy Goram
So right now, you're saying this is an opportunity for businesses to, even if they've got a set of values, is to reassess where they are, and in doing so involve their team members in putting those together. But from my perspective, when I think about that stuff, I mean that involvement is crucial for buy-in, but it's also crucial to transfer ownership for these things because I think where we probably both see issues with values in businesses in the past is when there is no ownership because they've almost been passed down you know, and you don't want that, right?
00:26:36 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
00:26:38 Andy Goram
You want these things to be built from the bottom up, really.
00:26:43 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, and so I think...
00:26:44 Andy Goram
It's interesting you say about having team values as well as corporate values because I have a similar, but different sort of perspective, in that I think you have the core values of the business that remain the same, but the behaviours, that if you like the observable behaviours that show, like you're talking about, the delivery of those values. Yeah, I'm a firm believer that should be grown from the team, right? So, it's so it's really relevant and really owned.
00:27:11 Andrew Deighton
Yes, I think just an example to build on that point. Andy, I think depends on the size of your organisation as well. But what one method that I think that works really well is to get a diagonal slice of of the population into a kind of into a focus group type of environment. And you say you've got, some senior managers, you've got some middle managers, you've got some team members. But get that slice of mix of people into a room and take the values, whether they're corporate, the corporate ones that you want to roll out and get that group working together, so they will bring a different perspective based on their, their role and their experience. But they can build it up together and then it's not top down implemented, it's built by the population themselves, kind of thing. So, you get that engagement and ownership, it’s about ownership ultimately. But I think people can hear the different perspectives tohelp them create that set of behaviours.
Just a real example, I did some work a while ago with a with a brick manufacturer and they've got about 16 sites across the across the country, so they got their corporate values, but they were at the time, they were a bit sort of just wallpaper. So, what I did as part of a team of people working with the company was (ask) “Actually, does it matter if the behaviours that we see in Bolton are different to the behaviours we see in Leicester?” Because the culture of that factory is different, but the underpinning thing that you said earlier is that common set of values. So, we took each of those corporate values and the team developed their local set in language that was relevant to that location, to the sort of work they would do. Meaning you had that common set of corporate values, but different sorts of definitions depending on the location and the culture of the local site.
And then people feel it's real then. It's not just corporate words. Actually, we built those words and the words we've used mean something to us.
00:29:36 Andy Goram
But they're still delivering the overarching, values of the business.
00:29:41 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, absolutely consistent with the direction that the business wants to go and the values that business wants. Which is critical, absolutely. People feel it's real then. It's practical to them.
00:29:54 Andy Goram
I mean like you can go the other way as well, can't it? I mean, you talk about, you know, different cultures in different places. Have you come across situations where businesses are trying to merge sites or even different businesses there? So, you've got two different cultures coming together, have you had experience of dealing with that and if so, what were you faced with? Because that almost sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
You know, when I talk to investment guys who talk about, you know all the DD they do, the due diligence that they do for putting business together on finance and legal and all this kind of stuff. There's a real mix of them that actually do cultural assessments as well as well, because whilst it will add up the numbers on paper, actually, bringing 2 quite disparate cultures often together could be disastrous, right? So, what's the solutions for avoiding that sort of stuff?
00:30:55 Andrew Deighton
I think I think the first the first question to me is “Do we need to force that culture on the, if it's an acquisition or merger or whatever, do we do we need to force a dominant culture on everybody? And I think that should be a question and the answer may be yes, we do. Or it might be actually within a broad set of values. That's OK, you know.And then you can define your own, as we've just talked about, you can define your own behaviours under those values, but we're not going to impose a set of behaviours on you.
I think I've got just a couple of brief examples. The first one is a long quite a quite a few years ago, Rolls Royce acquired Vickers and the Vickers acquisition was made up of a lot of small businesses. A lot of them in the Nordic region. Norway, Finland, Sweden. Lots of them were almost based on an island. You know it's a factory on an island and most of the population worked in that factory and so they had their very own unique cultures. Quite different in different parts of the marine business. And Rolls Royce was trying to put in place its corporate processes and ways of doing things, and at the time there was quite a lot of pushback. “Well, you know, we've been successful in our organisation for years and then this big corporate entities coming in and forcing us to change potentially.” And so, I think there was quite a bit of pushback at times from “Why should we do it that way? Because actually what we do works really well. We’re very nimble and you're putting bureaucracy in for us”, you know. So, I think we need to be very careful about how we approach those sort of things and the engagement and things like that?
And there may well be genuine reasons why it must be done this way, and that's fine, but go through that thought process and long get the engagement with the people to think about, “OK, well, we've got to do this, how are we going to do it?” “How are we going to implement it?”
In our context, the other one that springs to mind is my last job before I left Rolls Royce. It was on our bid team. We were bidding for a very large civil nuclear decommissioning contract and Rolls Royce was in a joint venture with two other engineering consultancies, Amec and Atkins. And when I joined that team we were based in Washington for various reasons and when I went into that office I didn't know any of the Rolls Royce people, because we'd come from lots of different bits of the business, and I certainly didn't know any of the Amec and Atkins people. But walking in you couldn't tell who was from which business. There was this culture that had been developed within the project team, within the bid team, which was just brilliant and I asked the guy who led that team, how he did it?
His answer was, “I assume that the people that the companies are putting forward to be in in this team are capable and good at their job. I take that for granted, so I'm not second guessing the people they're putting forward from a from a technical or functional expertise perspective, and then what I do is I recruit on people who I think will fit into the team from a behavioural perspective and it just works.”
So this guy was a Welsh guy and he was big into his rugby, and he kind of used his rugby experience to just create this. And it was the most seamless team I've ever worked for. It was just brilliant. We all had a very clear focus on what we had to do, really tight timescales. We actually, basically during the week we kind of lived together really 'cause we all lived in the same hotel for six months Monday to Friday. So there was this real strong bond of team members, but he just based it on the fit into the team and it and it just worked. He was brilliant.
00:35:04 Andy Goram
I think a lot of it comes from that leadership and setting that clear vision and I guess holding people to account on their behaviour in line with that vision.
Well, I think we have already talked about a whole wide range of things in in this conversation. So, we've talked about, you know, the steps of pulling a team together or re engaging a team who've been apart for the last year. We've talked about the influence all that has on culture and some steps you might need to take on that. But we talked about practicality at the start of this. And what could be more practical Andrew than sticking your thoughts onto 3 sticky notes for me? Because this is the part of my show where we just try and summarise and give the listeners something simple and practical to take away.
So, in the context that we've talked about, with people going back to work and teams coming back together and opportunities to kind of either re-establish the culture of the business or establish the new culture that businesses want to see going forward. What wisdom would you stick onto three sticky notes that adorn the walls of Sticky Studios?
00:36:14 Andrew Deighton
Yeah, I think my first one would be and again these apply to startups or existing teams. So in my first one would be to really define that set of behaviours that are relevant to your team. In it's specific context, but link it back to whatever, if it has to be linked to the company values fine, but define that specific set of behaviours and in language that's relevant to the people in that team. Someone called it “Chip shop language”, so it's not all jargon, and so on it's real language that people understand, so that would be my first, my first one.
I think my second one is around that engagement side, getting people engaged by helping them to think of what's in it for me? So beyond the deliverables of the project or the task or the activities, why do I really personally want to be part of this team?
And then my third one is more around the leader. There's this concept called the “shadow of the leader” and I think as the team leader you've got to live up to those values and demonstrate those behaviours in everything you do because all those team members are going to be looking up. And so well, if you don't do it, why should I bother? I think that's really important, that it all starts at the top, at the leader level, because if you don't do it, no one else will do.
00:37:48 Andy Goram
Absolutely right, mate. No say-do gap on my watch. I get that 100%. Absolutely right. That's great. That's some very nice, simple, practical examples of things to do, to help you re-engage with your team and start rebuilding that culture after what's been an interesting year.
00:38:10 Andrew Deighton
Yeah.
00:38:11 Andy Goram
Andrew, thank you so much for your time, my friend. I really enjoyed speaking to you and I will see you again very soon. Take care.
00:38:17 Andrew Deighton
Thanks Andy.
00:38:18 Andy Goram
OK, that was Andrew Deighton from AWD development solutions. If you'd like to find out a bit more about Andrew, or indeed check out his book The Exceptional Team Blueprint, where he covers a lot of the things that he's talked about today, please check out the show notes.
So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forwards. If you have, please, like comment and subscribe. It really helps.
I'm Andy Goram and you've been listening to the sticky from the Inside podcast until next time. Thanks for listening.