David Burkus Presents

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Can artificial intelligence help you manage your team better? Can it help you become a better leader? AI is reshaping the workplace and managers can leverage it to enhance their leadership skills rather than just cutting costs. In this video, you'll learn about the...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast What if I told you, instead of one performance review a year, you should just have 12 smaller ones throughout the year? Traditional performance reviews are outdated and a lot of companies have ditched them for more informal check-ins. As managers and leaders, it's p...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast You can't "moneyball" your team. There’s a tendency to treat employee engagement like the score of a game, and so we shouldn’t be surprised when people try to game the system and improve the score. But the point of collecting all that data isn’t to learn h...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast The concept of a place to work with no bosses sounds great, right? Less oversight, more trust, more autonomy. But it doesn't have the greatest track record. And I don't totally agree with it. The role of a middle manager needs a refresh, not an elimination. Midd...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast How do you make your team care about the work they are doing? If you’re asking that question as I just did, you’re in a lot of trouble. You’ve probably made some desperate attempts already. I promise, even if you think your team is doing the most boring work, turning nu...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Struggling with a barely performing team despite their impressive resumes? I think I may know what be missing. Discover the power of building “common understanding” through empathy, drawing lessons from astronaut Chris Hadfield and research by Professor Anita Williams W...

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast I don’t think my team really trusts me enough to talk to me honestly….(sound like you?)Hate to say it, but you probably don’t have a lot of trust between you and your team. As a leader, you need to build trust by ultimately creating a psychologically safe culture (Hat t...

Conflict within a team is an inevitable part of any work environment. The diverse perspectives, ideas, and solutions that team members bring to the table can often lead to disagreements and conflicts. However, it's important to remember that team conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be beneficial in many ways. It can help identify blind spots, explore different solutions...

It may seem like leaders need to have all the answers. Presumably, they became leaders by being smart, hardworking individual contributors who had the answers most of the time. But while knowing what to do is important, great leaders believe that knowing what questions to ask is even more vital. Especially when it comes to leading the team. Asking them the right questions instead of barking out th...

Teamwork is a constant in organizational life. You will work on teams for the majority of your career. Some of those teams will be an uplifting, engaging experience—but most will be an average or even a draining experience. Because most teams aren’t high-performing ones. Most teams fail to achieve a level of performance above the average of each individual’s capabilities. Most teams lack what Step...

Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results. However, effective teamwork doesn't just happen; it requires careful planning and implementation. This episode provides six tips for effective teamwork that will help you build a high-performing team. These tips are not just theoretical concepts, but practical strategies that have been proven to work in real-world settin...

Great leaders aren’t born, they’re made. While it’s tempting to look at stories of great leaders and just assume they’re received some divine or genetic gift that turned them into exemplars, the truth is much more nuanced. Leadership is a skill that can be honed and improved with practice and the right guidance. This episode will explore three key habits that can significantly enhance your leaders...

Psychological safety is the bedrock of a high-performing team. It's more than just trust; it's about fostering a climate of mutual trust and respect. Building psychological safety at work is not a one-time event, but a continuous process that requires conscious effort and commitment. It's about creating an environment where everyone feels safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and b...

Every team leader knows the importance of keeping their team motivated. The more motivated your team, the more productive they are, and the better results they deliver. Research suggests that the more powerful form of motivation is intrinsic, flowing from an individual’s desire to do the work or achieve the outcome for their own reasons—not bonuses, awards, or other extrinsic motivators leaders of...

Trust is the bedrock upon which successful teams are built. High-performing teams are characterized by an elevated level of trust. This trust in high performing teams manifests in four distinct ways: teams trust each other to deliver, they trust that they can share new ideas, they trust that they can disagree, and they trust that they can make mistakes. Each of these aspects of trust contributes t...

Conflict on a team is inevitable. On diverse teams, where individuals come from varying backgrounds and possess differing opinions, those opinions will clash often in the form of disagreements and conflicts. Understanding the types of team conflict that can arise in a team setting is crucial for effective management and resolution. In this episode, we will delve into the four types of team conflic...

High-performing teams are often perceived as having extraordinary talents and capabilities, but they are not that different from regular teams—at least in terms of composition. Research indicates that high-performing teams are not just about having exceptionally talented individuals. Instead, they excel in understanding how to collaborate effectively and harness the diverse talents within the team...

Icebreakers are not just games or frivolous activities. Many people have memories of cringeworthy and awkward games played under the pretense of “team building.” I was one of them. But the research on icebreakers is pretty clear. Icebreakers are powerful tools that can help teams find uncommon commonalities and build strong connections. Icebreakers can be the key to unlocking a more collaborative,...

Team building and understanding each other's behavior are crucial elements in creating a strong team culture and creating a high-performing teams. But many leaders struggle to find and deliver effective team building exercises. There are many too choose from, and many fall short. Because so many exercises focus on getting teammates to understand each other’s differences—often expresses as pers...

Managers make the difference. Middle managers especially play a crucial role in employee engagement and performance. However, many managers lack proper preparation for their role, and companies often fail to invest in robust leadership training. Great managers understand that their actions have a direct impact on their team's success. In particular, great managers improve their team through fo...

One-on-one meetings with employees are a crucial aspect of effective leadership. Organizations spent countless hours, money, and other resources trying to find the most qualified talent on board, and then spent more money to keep that talent motivated and engaged. And yet, the single most time time-efficient and effective way to invest in the growth and development of employees is a simple feedbac...

It’s often said by teams that “diversity is our strength.” We take for granted the idea that diverse teams bring more lived experiences, ideas, and solutions to the table. When asked, “How does diversity affect teamwork?” most leaders assume that teams composed of individuals from different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives are more likely to approach problems from various angles and come up...

Are you a good listener? You may think you’re a good listener—maybe someone even told you were a good listener. Or maybe not. As a leader, this is a very important question. So much of your ability to solve the problems your team is bringing to you depends upon your ability to understand them. And in order to help your team feel heard and listened to when their pitching possible solutions depends...

Margaret Thatcher once famously quipped that “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.” As a leader, the same could be said about respect. If you wonder if you’re team respects you, they probably don’t. Being a leader is not just about having authority and power; it's about earning the respect and trust of your team. Your title may have made you...

In a world of growing complexity and seemingly constant crisis, we need great leaders more than ever. But when you look at the stories in the press or check the staggering numbers of burnout and disengagement in surveys, it seems like fewer and fewer leaders are rising to the challenge. It starts to seem like becoming a great leader is too complicated and nearly impossible. But when you survey peo...