The Unified Team

Whenever we introduce change we meet resistance. Every change involves loss of some sort for someone. That person is likely to be the person who most resists the change. How well we address their concerns determines the smoothness of change. We can push past resistance, but when we don't address these concerns we suffer. Either we get silent conflict and disengagement. We get loss of trust or acti...

Why do we do this? Whenever we join together, there's a sacrifice. We give up time, resources or autonomy. So why would we join? Humans have always joined together because some goals we can only achieve in numbers. Once that was to succeed in the hunt or to stay safe. Now it is to achieve increasingly complex goals. Or even to have a stable wage. We sacrifice something to get something greater tog...

How do I get people to do what I want? Change is notoriously difficult. So is leadership. But why? Because often the change we seek to make isn't for the greater good. It's for what I want. For my personal agenda. And that's why we can't get people on board with it. Leadership isn't about how good you are. It's about how good you can make others. It's about how little of your own agenda is involve...

Everyone wants to feel good about themself. Our inner narrative is driven by this imperative. No-one wants to hate. We hate when we're empty. We need to find a scapegoat that explains why we're not doing as well as we wish we were. In the UK this week there have been shocking scenes of anti-immigration riots. On the surface it looks like racism. Actually there's a bigger problem. This is about hop...

Why are some people so much better than everyone else in a given field? What makes a Usain Bolt or Steve Jobs so successful? Is it nature or nurture? Outliers by Malcom Gladwell seeks to answer these question. An Outlier is an anomoly. Most people think of the average as the mean. But most science (at least social science) tracks the mid point. Otherwise the data will be skewed by Outliers. That i...

The world is changed by those who can inspire and unite. Whether it's Martin Luther King giving a dream for the civil rights movement. Nelson Mandela uniting South Africans as a new nation. Or a team unifying around a shared goal. We achieve by working together as one. While this is magical when it works, it more often than not doesn't work. It doesn't happen by chance. Because human forces are wo...

Business wants to be scientific. Managers want to see data, facts and evidence to base decisions on. The last thing anyone wants to do is to put the company at risk. No-one wants to be blamed for being reckless. So we buy based on logic. But when we sell logic to people they resist. We buy proven tech and initiatives, but employees don't use it. Because people have their own opinions, preferences...

Every life has value and lessons. Hollywood and the mainstream media look for the blockbusters. But often the insights and lessons we need come from people like us. People living everyday lives who have seen something that we haven't. A book has a life's experiences encoded into a few hours read. Those few hours can let us vicariously experience a lifetime of insights. Someone who's worked 30 year...

When we gather together, there's pressure to agree. Groups create norms. And belonging often means we have to conform. Challenging those norms threatens the group. And so it can put our belonging at risk. As a result there is a dynamic to agree. To choose people like us. To conform to the pack for safety and harmony. But we become blinded to danger. We make poor decisions that threaten the group's...

If you had one shot... One opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted... Would you capture it or let it slip? We never know when an opportunity will fall to us. And often they fall when we're not prepared. We kick ourselves for not having the presence to say what we later think of. That moment slips because we weren't ready. Mastery means training to be better when we need to be. It's masteri...

Where does power come from? Does our authority come from our position? Or from our presence? Our belief will affect how we show up. People who see their power as their position will seek to build their status. People who see their presence as power, will seek to engage to develop their influence. We aren't always in control of, if and when, we get a position of power. But we are in control of deve...

250 years ago the founding fathers drew up the U.S constitution. They had been able to learn lessons from older nations and avoid some of their mistakes. This disparate union of states grew to become the world superpower. Today, there is a new and ambitious union that is looking to launch itself as a global player. As a region it is having to unify many tribal interests in massive unified goals. I...

Do you like to read? I've always loved to read. It's the possibility of finding new ideas. Ideas are the building blocks I play with. When I read books I want new ideas. Ideas that change my thinking. Ideas reimagined. Or ideas refuted. I love to read, but now it's something I don't always find the time to do. When I realised some of my friends read a lot it gave me an idea. Let's start a regular...

Most leadership is remedial. For me, a Leader has three key roles... 1. To articulate the vision of what the collective is going to achieve. 2. Agreeing the strategic direction that everyone's going to follow. 3. Carrying the group along and ensuring the values of the beliefs of what it means to be part of the group are upheld. The problem is that much of management is about picking up the pieces....

If you failed at your job more than 50% of the time would you still have a job? Imagine a Surgeon who failed half the time. Or a pilot. Or a production line. Now look at the divorce statistics. More than half of our most commited relationships, marriages, end in divorce. Ok divorce isn't necessarily failure. But we bond together to have something that lasts. And at work, we have the same problems...

What does it take to lead? To lead others we have to be able to tap into something in them. We have to have the empathy and sensitivity to see how what we do impacts them. We have to have the self awareness to adapt and adjust what we do, based on the feedback we get. Our ability to lead others comes from our awareness of who we are. There are lots of personality tests and tools to find strengths...

How do we inspire others to achieve great things? Saurabh Debnath was on course to achieve his lifelong goal of representing India at cricket. That is to be one of 11 in a country with a 1.4bn population. That is a 1 in 127 million chance. Yet Saurabh was on course to hit it. By 18 he'd played for three years in the Ranji trophy as a fast bowler. He'd been selected to represent the best team, Mumb...

Do you remember the story of the three little pigs? They each built a house. But only one built one that was strong enough to withstand the big, bad wolf. That saved the day. When you build a house, you dig down to lay strong foundations. These are what give a house its strength. And so when gale force winds and even hurricanes come, the house can often sustain the force. The strength of a house l...

The problem with men is... As a relationship coach I heard the problems of trying to date and relate to men. Sit in a coffee shop or a bar and you'll often hear women talking about men and their shortcomings. The media tells us about toxic masculinity. What's clear is men are struggling. With relationships. Depression. And suicide. The world has changed and there's a section of men who aren't adap...

How do you answer what do you do? It's a question that many of us hate because we often don't have a concise answer. It might involve a label that limits us. And it doesn't cover the range of how we do, what we do and makes us special. At best, it's limiting and at worst it's confusing. Today is a special episode of The Unified Team Podcast. It's a milestone as it is the 100th episode and my guest...

I have a dream... With those four words Martin Luther King focused a movement on a dream they could all commit to. Campaigners could unite around the idea of all being equal. It was the core premise they all agreed and identified with. Whether our team is a sports team, social movement or corporate team we need a vision. It is the vision that frames every interaction. Every relationship. And it is...

Engage, empower and educate! That's Chris Cotter 's strategy for getting teams to work together. Chris visited Japan as a Graduate and never returned. Working as a language teacher he ended up running a language school. Then he moved to a tech startup building a language learning app. This was where he developed his thinking about developing teams. Coming from the United States to Japan, from indi...

How can you support your team through change? Change is the norm now. Organisations are almost permanently making some change or another. It's an upheaval while still trying to keep business as normal. How can you get your team through the process? I asked two Change Management Experts for their tips. Listen in to today's Unified Team Podcast to see what Daniel Lock and Lisa Cunningham DeLauney ha...

All of us have been sold a lie! Be a good boy or girl and do well at school. Put your head down at work. And then you'll get your reward and be happy. It isn't what happens. It's why we have mid-life crises. It's why people are turning their back on corporate life to brunch out for themselves. The default model doesn't work out. It was a lie to make you work for other people's goals. Annika Mohlin...

Life exists in tension. Everything we do, is done along a spectrum of tension. Conflicting goals create tension. Leadership is about managing those tensions. Managers want to create a psychologically safe environment. Yet, there is a natural tension with the fear of failure and not performing. When you give a speech, prepare a bid or create something it could fail. That fear is at the root of what...