We Not Me

Pia and Dan are joined by Martin Bromiley OBE, airline captain, charity trustee, and public speaker whose story of loss has fuelled much of the work he does today. In 2005, Martin’s wife Elaine was admitted to hospital following an emergency that occurred while she was under anaesthetic. During the investigation into her death, Martin identified that Elaine’s death was due to failures in the way t...

Pia and Dan are joined by former corporate worker and now voluntary firefighter Sandy Quirinale . After her second son became interested in the fire service as a teenager, Sandy decided to sign up. She’s currently the only active female firefighter at her rural New Jersey station, and so brings her insight into diversity and teamwork within this highest-of-pressure situations. Takeaways from Dan a...

Dan and Pia explore creating safe cultures for people to thrive, with consultant Kevin Brownsey. Kevin is the CEO of Red Pill Consulting , a company that tries to help organisations change their culture. While some organisations strive for a “winning culture”, Kevin defines culture as the “beliefs that underpin the behaviours that drive the outcomes, not the outcomes themselves.” Takeaways from Da...

Jim Molan spent 40 years in the army from the age of 17. Since retiring from the army in 2008 as a Major General, he has written a book about his time in Iraq, co-authored policy on border-control, and consulted internationally. Jim is now a Senator for the Liberal Party in Australia. When talking with Dan and Pia about how teams work together, Jim makes the observation that within the military, t...

What is the future of remote team collaboration? Do we continue with Zoom meetings and the risk of fatigue they can bring, or is there a new approach we can take? Dan and Pia explore meetings in the metaverse, with the help of freelance technologist Ian Smith. They discuss virtual avatars, getting together in a 3D space, and examine where it’s appropriate to meet in a space where everyone looks li...

For over a year Chuck Anderson underwent a battery of tests to find out why he was feeling so physically unwell. After moving from the US to Sydney and still finding no answers, he was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. After cycles of depression and anxiety, Chuck was finally given information on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), which changed his life dramatically for the bet...

Professional double-bassist Craig Scott of the Sydney Conservatorium joins Dan and Pia to discuss the ultimate team: the jazz ensemble. “There’s probably no better example of democracy than a jazz ensemble – individual freedom, but with responsibility to the group,” –Michelle Obama Jazz improvisation follows a set of rules that enable creativity within a structure, so that out of a predictable pat...

In their first episode of season two, Dan and Pia explore the three Cs needed for success: clarity, climate and competence with the help of Dr Jessica Tonissen. Download the Three Cs cheat sheet Dan, Pia, and Jess review some of the key takeaways from season one of the We Not Me podcast: Three things sales teams need to do to be more effective : episode 4 with Anna Britnor Guest Bringing head and...

When you help people help, you help people hope. Gillian Coutts , Country Director at Potential Project discovered this when working within her community during Australia's border closing following the COVID outbreak. In her work, she saw teams come together in extraordinary ways, but she also shares findings from a UK study that has been replicated elsewhere, that show how we often see ourselves...

For global leadership consultant Sahera Sumar , "diversity is a fact, but inclusion is the mindset", and it's possible for teams to be diverse but not inclusive. Sahera felt like she denied her heritage in order to feel accepted and fit in at work. Many organisations run programmes to try and combat unconscious bias, but this is only the start of the journey, and there's much more work to do to fo...

Customer-centric companies are laser-focused on providing great experiences for their customers. For Stuart Dalziel, teams play a pivotal role in bringing experiences that create ease in customers' lives. Using examples from café chains to high-end hotels, Stuart breaks down how teams share knowledge, roles, and responsibilities, in service of the Peter Drucker axiom: "The purpose of business is t...

Every member of a squad is of equal value, regardless of their department, seniority, or pay scale. It's important to check egos at the door when forming a squad and embarking on a new project. Those are some of the principles held by Natalie Peters , change and transformation lead at Australian bank NAB. After 20 years working in HR, Natalie began exploring the world of agile project management a...

Actor Erik Thomson is no stranger to being part of a team, whether that be on the production set of a feature film or TV series. In his conversation with Dan and Pia, Erik discusses the importance of recognising everyone's role in a production, from lighting a scene to walking the red carpet at Cannes. For Erik, building a solid working team is about breaking social barriers away from work. He emp...

Sports teams have been evaluating their effectiveness for a long time, with the singular goal of improving performance. This week, Dan and Pia are joined by former Australian rugby player Owen Finegan , to look at the way businesses and not-for-profits can use data in the same way sport has for decades. Owen played and coached professional rugby for 16 years before moving into the non-profit world...

For civil engineering General Manager Lucy Hovanec , purpose can breathe life into teams, and in order to lead, self-knowledge is crucial. In this discussion, Lucy shares with Dan and Pia her toolkit for working with teams across cultural divides and around the world, to help them wake up excited to come to work: Asking questions to make sure everyone is aligned on the task at hand Assessing the c...

Google iterates in 30-minute increments, which is part of why this massive company is able to innovate so quickly at scale. This involves making mistakes, but recovering and correcting quickly. The pace at Google is a far cry from the stereotypical image of people lying around on beanbags or playing foosball. As Managing Director for Global Public Sector Strategy and Sales at Google, Todd Schroede...

This week, Dan and Pia are joined by Anna Britnor Guest , who has over 30 years of technology sales experience and who now works to develop and coach salespeople within the SaaS industry. They talk about whether sales "teams" are really teams and not just groups of people, pivoting the mantra of "don't lose alone" to "don't learn alone", and maintaining a common language around the sales process....

This week, Pia and Dan discuss psychological safety with Dr Jessica Tonissen , leadership and wellbeing coach, Doctor of Psychology and Associate Director at InLightening in Melbourne. Dr Tonissen dispels some of the myths and misunderstandings around the term, how psychological safety does not have to come at the expense of performance, and that there's a difference between safety and artificial...

Empathic leadership is what's needed in a globally-distributed workforce, and replacing water-cooler moments isn't as simple as organising more mandatory Zoom calls. This week, Dan and Pia talk remote collaboration with Sydney-based Michelle Zimany , Human Resources leader for the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. They discuss the loss of spontaneity and serendipity in the age where people only meet...

Dan and Pia speak to Rob Metcalfe – a former commando now leadership consultant and team coach – about significant performance challenges, how groups of people need to work proactively together to solve them, and how important social capital can be in fostering team effectiveness. Links The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Com...

What makes a rockstar team? How can we work from anywhere? What part does connection play in today's world? Welcome to a brand new podcast, all about how humans connect and get stuff done together, presented by friends and colleagues Dan Hammond and Pia Lee. Pia is the CEO of Squadify . She taught children and then wanted to find out what they did when they grew up, so became a leadership consulta...