Dr. Stacey Philpot and Dr. Ted Freeman

[00:00:00] Roy Notowitz: Hello and welcome to How I Hire, the podcast that taps directly into the best executive hiring and leadership development insights. I'm Roy Notowitz, founder and CEO of Noto Group. You can learn more about us at notogroup.com. As a go-to firm for purpose-driven companies, we've been lucky to work with some of the world's most inspiring leaders as they've tackled the challenge of building high performance leadership teams. Now I'm sitting down with some of these very people to spark a conversation about how to achieve success in hiring and create purposeful leadership for the next generation of companies. Stacey Philpot and Ted Freeman join me once again on the podcast. Stacey and Ted are organizational psychologists; both are longtime colleagues and friends of Noto Group and How I Hire. Their work lies at the intersection of psychology, leadership development, strategy, culture, and team dynamics. It's very interesting work. They've worked independently and collectively for decades with major brands such as Nike, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, and many more. They both have long and successful track records of helping these companies streamline talent assessment, hone their culture and brand identity, and increase organizational effectiveness. In this episode, Ted and Stacey break down the most common tensions and truths they encounter when working with teams. They discuss how to build trust, aid in communication between colleagues, and the dynamic between leaders and their teams. We'll also get into the balance between autonomy and belonging, myths around high-performing teams, a leader's role in teamwork and success, and recurring concerns they hear from leaders about their teams. Ted, Stacey, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's great to have you back.

[00:01:55] Ted Freeman: I am delighted to be here. Thanks, Roy.

[00:01:57] Stacey Philpot: Me too. It's wonderful to be with you again, Roy.

[00:01:59] Roy Notowitz: I love talking about leadership, and I'm looking forward to digging in, and so let's begin with a little bit about your business and your career background. Give us some context for what you've been working on in the last year or so since we talked.

[00:02:13] Ted Freeman: So, Stacey and I, as you know, we're both organizational psychologists. We've been doing this for a long time, and we do a lot of work together. We've been friends for a long time, professional colleagues for a long time, and we work with individuals doing executive coaching. We do a lot of work around leadership development and organizations. We do a lot of work with teams; particularly in the last few years, we've really been concentrating on teams because there's such a critical leverage point for organizations. There's so much work that gets done through teams.

[00:02:47] Stacey Philpot: Yeah, I mean, I feel really lucky that we're able to do the work that we do. I'm a psychologist and have been doing this for over 25 years, and my life's work is: how do we use what we know about psychology and social sciences to make the workplace better? And I think what Ted and I have really seen is, over the last decade, the amount of time that people spend in their work lives as part of a team has skyrocketed. And so, for us, looking at how do we help those teams be more effective -- and people's experience in those teams be better -- is really important work that we've wanted to focus on.

[00:03:25] Roy Notowitz: Yeah. That's amazing. You titled this podcast "The Surprising Tensions and Truths About Teams." Why did you pick that title?

[00:03:34] Ted Freeman: We often, when we're working with teams, ask them about experiences that they've had on a high-performing team. We hear a lot of mythology about high-performing teams, so people will go to that sparkling moment where everything was clicking and everything was aligned. Stacey sometimes teases people about it being that Disney moment where the team wins the championships. But then when we dig a little bit deeper, even those amazing teams that people were part of, we find that there's a lot more to them, that there were moments when the team was not performing, that it took a lot of effort to get to that high level of performance, that it took a lot of continuous effort to sustain it, that there were sacrifices that people had to make. And so the truth about teams is a lot more complicated than that.

[00:04:35] Stacey Philpot: I think also, both a surprise and attention, is that the same team can create a positive and negative experience. So if you're part of a team, there can be that amazing moment where you feel like things are going great, but it likely didn't start out that way. And so not romanticizing teams and understanding that you might get that great championship moment. You might get that moment where the team did more than you thought was possible, but it's not going to always be like that. And helping people have a more realistic sense of what it's like to be on a team because, when they walk around with that sense of what it's supposed to be, then, when it's not like that, they often feel like they're failing. And that creates a downward spiral of people becoming disengaged on the team. So, part of the work that we do is helping people understand what's real about being on a team at work and what's a myth. And the first one is thinking that it's either all bad or all good. Most teams are a combination of both.

[00:05:35] Roy Notowitz: From a leadership perspective too, it's often times probably difficult for leaders to really tune into and understand what's happening within their teams. What are your thoughts about that?

[00:05:46] Stacey Philpot: I think that's absolutely true. I think a lot of times, leaders are very busy. I spoke with a leader yesterday and I said, "Look, what are your priorities?" And they said, "It's leading a divestiture. It's focusing on a high-growth area of the business, and it's leading my team." It was one of three things that leader was focusing on, and so, I think, a lot of times, because leaders are balancing so much, they're not as attuned to their team. You combine that with the fact that most leaders have additional context and relationships, there's a lot of opportunity for disconnect and misperception. And I think one of the things that we help leaders see, that they find surprisingly helpful, is that we try to take the bubble that everybody has above their head that they're not saying, and how do we actually bring it into the room? And usually, what we point out is, on every single team, every single member on that team is worried about three things. The first one is the tension between autonomy and belonging. Are they going to be able to do what they need to do to be successful? And are they going to also be part of the team? And those things often feel at odds for people; like, they want to be part of the team, but they're always worried that the team's going to make them compromise too much. And how do they balance that out?

[00:07:00] Roy Notowitz: Right.

[00:07:01] Stacey Philpot: The other tension they're often worried about is: how much of their time on the team do they need to be performing versus can they be more vulnerable and learn? Right? Like, part of what we do at work is we do perform, we show people we've got it, we want to increase competency, but sometimes we also need to learn in a team environment and be curious. And that's attention. And then I think the last one is most people struggle with: to what degree do I focus on my own success versus this whole team's success? And sometimes those feel at odds. And so, one of the first things we do when we're working with the team is we go, "Look, you're human. All humans worry about this. They worry about their autonomy, their belonging, their learning, their performing, their success, and balancing with the success of the team. And if you happen to have that running in the background while we're talking about this team, you're normal. And that actually gives people permission to talk about it, instead of thinking that they're the only one worrying about it. That tends to actually come as a relief to a lot of the clients that we work with.

[00:07:55] Ted Freeman: There's a lot of messages that team leaders get, or team members get, that if we have a checklist of things, and we just do that checklist of things, we will be a high-performing team. And what we actually find is that high-performing teams manage these tensions or these dilemmas that Stacey is talking about; they manage those well. So, you take the one that Stacey was talking about, about learning and performing. So these are two things that every team needs to do. Teams, they need to perform, they need to deliver, right? But, if they're in performance mode, delivery mode all the time, it's hard for them to get better. They actually need to sometimes stop performing and focus on the learning part of things. But, of course, if they're in learning mode all the time, they're not going to be performing at the highest level. And I think sometimes people make a mistake of thinking, "Oh, well we just need to find the right balance." And it's more like a dynamic balance. Like, "In this moment, we may need to focus a little bit more on the learning side of things. Oh wait. Things have changed. In this moment, we need to focus more on the performing side of things." And the same is true about all of these tensions that teams face. And, as I said, high-performing teams are ones that manage these tensions well.

[00:09:20] Roy Notowitz: Excellent. What concerns do leaders typically express about their teams?

[00:09:27] Ted Freeman: Well, one that we hear a lot is leaders of teams will say something like, "Why don't people just see things the way that I do?" And they get very frustrated that people are not looking across the organization. They're looking at their own functional area, as opposed to what's happening in other parts of the team or other parts of the business. And there's a temptation for the leader then to get a lectern and lecture their people for 60 minutes. "Look, let me just tell you the way that I see things from my position, and then you'll be able to figure that out yourselves after that," right? Or, "You'll be able to act differently as a result of that." And the truth is that doesn't really work.

[00:10:11] Stacey Philpot: What does work in that situation is making sure that the team has an opportunity to share context, to reinforcing with the leader that actually it is part of their job to be a translator for the team and to share context. So, helping a leader say, "What is my job as leading the team? And what does my team need from me right now?" is something that we often do when we're working with a team leader. Like, we help them see, "Okay, what are my financial responsibilities in terms of leading this P&L?" Or, "What do I need to do as a brand steward?" et cetera. But then there's usually a component that's about, "What is my job in terms of leading these people?" And usually that is some kind of providing them context and translating what's going on outside the team into what it means for the team.

[00:10:57] Roy Notowitz: That's great.

[00:10:59] Stacey Philpot: I think another tension on the team that gets expressed as a tension by the leader is the difference between the leader's perspective, which is always usually wanting the team to step up, and do more, and take more initiative, and the team usually wanting the leader to give them more autonomy, and freedom to operate, and room, and not to feel micromanaged. And what that often devolves into is a lack of trust where the team feels like the leader doesn't trust them, and the leader feels like they don't trust the team to be able to perform.

[00:11:27] Roy Notowitz: Yeah, that makes sense. So what do you do in that situation?

[00:11:31] Stacey Philpot: It's often helping increase perceptions of competency on both parts. And this usually comes, not from just directly talking about trust per se, but having a conversation about the work that the team is doing, right? Because what people are often worried about on a team in terms of letting go or decision-making is: can the other person make that decision, and are they willing to do the work? And the best way to do that is by focusing on people talking more about what they're working on in a vulnerable way. It usually helps the team get a better grounding around where everybody's at, and it usually increases both perceptions of competency, "Wow. My peers actually are on it." Or the team leader saying, "Oh, this team actually does get it," right? "If they're not getting the results I want, it's not because they don't understand. It's just because there's something going on," and then you're able to have a much more productive conversation around your way forward.

[00:12:24] Roy Notowitz: Excellent. So are there any other concerns that we didn't touch on after those first two?

[00:12:30] Ted Freeman: Another one that we hear a lot from team leaders is their frustration that members of the team don't work out issues or don't resolve points of integration between them, with the leader saying, "Look, I have too many other things to worry about. Like, why can't these people just get together and sort this out themselves?" And they do have a point, right? I think at a certain level, it's reasonable to expect that their team members have the maturity and the competence to work some of these issues out between them. But, at the same time, this is a really important part of a team leader's job to figure out, "Okay, so where are these points of overlap? Where are these points of tension among my team members?" and sometimes, to get more actively involved in resolving them. There's a team leader that we're working with now and just had a conversation with them recently where they were expressing this frustration. And part of the coaching to them was helping them realize that this is a place where they actually need to step into the team. They're feeling overwhelmed by all of the demands of the CEO, by the demands of the board, by other demands in the business, and they would like to just have this be taken care of, but we're actually advising them, "You know, this is a place where you're going to need to step in more deeply and help people work these things through. You know, you've now gone a couple of rounds with asking them to work it out themselves, and it hasn't worked."

[00:14:06] Roy Notowitz: Right. So you've given lots of great examples of how you work with teams. Is there any other overarching concepts or ways in which you work with teams?

[00:14:17] Ted Freeman: I think there are a couple of things that really guide how we approach our teams. So, one is having them think about their team effectiveness work as a journey, as opposed to a single event. We have some clients who have a history of: they would do some kind of event and it would be very flashy and they would be very exciting and it would be very memorable, but if you really dug into, "Did it make a difference in how the team was performing?" The answer was no. And that's because, usually, getting to higher performance is something that has to happen over a series of sessions. So it's a journey. Anytime that we're with a team, there are a few things that we're thinking about doing. One is connect, two is learn, and three is do. So what do I mean by connect? Stacey talked earlier about the idea that in the past there was a lot of emphasis in team-building work on intimacy. Too much. And it's not that we think that intimacy is a bad thing. We actually think that having some interpersonal connection, building some trusting relationships is incredibly important. It's just not the only thing. And so, in addition to doing that, we think that there are some things that people just straight up need to learn: how to lead a team, being a good team member, but none of that works without them giving some attention to the actual work that the team needs to do. So they need to do this connection and they need to do this learning in the context of real problems that this team is facing.

[00:15:59] Stacey Philpot: Part of when we work with a team, we actually start by saying, what is the problem that needs to be addressed for this team right now? Right? Not every team is the same. Not every process works. So, for example, I worked with a team recently, and they were reformulating their strategy. And part of the team work that we did was thinking, "What needs to happen so that team can have a really great conversation and get clear on their strategy? What do we need to do to help the team get there?" So, for example, in that case, what we did is we realized that it was very likely that the team was going to get deadlocked on some really hot issues around the strategy. And if they left their kind of two day meeting on strategy, and the issues weren't resolved, the credibility of the team and the organization was going to decrease. And so, what we did is we spent about a half day before they got into the content of the strategic decisions, and had worked with their head of strategy and said, "Okay, what are the strategic decisions you guys need to make? And let's look at what are the hot topics or tensions under each of those key decisions that you're going to need to make." And, as a team, we actually spent time looking at the tension underneath the decision before they even made the decision. So what does that mean? In most decisions, a, an executive team's going to need to make, there's some balance between growth and profitability. Or there's some issue related to, "If we give an exception to one part of the business, what's it going to mean to everyone else?" or, "If we decide to go, let's say, into a new market, right? That's going to raise questions of brand consistency, right? Versus growth opportunity." And so what we did with the team is we said, "Look, we're not actually making the decision today, but we're going to identify what are all the hot buttons that are going to get pressed that are going to come up tomorrow when you try to make this decision so that everybody can have shared context." And what they came back and said later was, "We would not have been able to have a productive dialogue if we hadn't been prepared for it as a team." So that's an example of, like, you help the team connect, and you help them learn before they went into the work that they actually had to do.

[00:18:13] Roy Notowitz: It's like aiming first.

[00:18:15] Stacey Philpot: Exactly. There are times, even when Ted and I have been working with a team, and we're like, "Gosh, we're a little stuck," and we'll say, "Okay, what is the conversation that if this team had it today, they'd be able to move forward? What's hard to say? And what do we need to do?" And then how do we design it so they can have that conversation productively?

[00:18:33] Roy Notowitz: Well you mentioned high-performing teams, so what do those types of teams really look like? Or how do you know what to look for?

[00:18:40] Stacey Philpot: I think, in business, what's really interesting to me is how often team times, like the time that team spent together, is spent doing report outs. I mean, everybody hates it, and yet, it's very common, and it's sort of like the lowest common denominator of team activity. And one of the things that we found is really helpful is having teams reflect on: what is their job as a team? So, like, in a company, there's something you might do. Like, let's say I'm the head of marketing, and Ted is the head of finance. We're going to come into a team, and we have to represent our functions of finance and marketing. But there's also work we do as a team member, and usually when we're together as a team, that work tends to fall into three categories: one is strategy. Where are we taking this team, this organization, this enterprise? The second tends to be, "Well, if that's our strategic vision, we've got to get from where we are now today to where we're going. What amount of change is that going to take, and how are we doing it?" And the third is, "How do we make sure our parts of the business are working well together? Because there's nobody else who can do that other than each other." And so, when we help teams understand that you're not here just to report out on your function, your requirements are related to strategy, leading change, and integrating the company, they then understand more that they need to have different conversations to the point that we even say, "Okay, let's look at your team agendas. How much time are you spending on strategy? How much time are you talking about how you're leading change? And how much time are you looking at how your work intersects and integrates together?" And usually they haven't balanced their time well. And so one of the things is rebalancing. It can help the team move forward.

[00:20:18] Ted Freeman: Yeah, I mean, just to give an example of that, we were working with the executive team of a large pharmaceutical company, and one of the things that we were hearing from the team was that they were spending a lot of time doing these report outs. And the CEO felt like it was a great team, high-performing team, but it could, and it needed to be better. And the focus that we had for that team was: how do we have them be more integrated? And, specifically, how do we have them focus their time on the things that only this team could do, that this team was uniquely positioned to do? Think about their talent. Think about the hundred people, the hundred second tier leaders that were critical to the future of the organization. So, having them come up, not just with a strategy for how they wanted to engage that team, not just with a strategy for what it was that they needed from that team and what they wanted to give to that team, but actually coach them through the agenda setting and the execution of a meeting with those hundred people. So it's very hands-on in that way of getting down to, "Okay, so how actually is this team going to integrate? Not just talking about the concept of integration."

[00:21:46] Stacey Philpot: I'm just thinking of another team that I worked with recently, which, you know, they kind of initially thought, "Well, I don't really know why we need to do team building. We are really clear on our strategy," and the CEO kind of had this instinct. He's like, "I don't know. I think things could be better," but he didn't know how to describe why. And so, it was funny when I talked with members of the team, they were very committed to telling me that the team was great. I was like, "You are great, and I am not here to prove that wrong." And when we asked them about what was going well, they're like, "We're really clear. We have a commercialization strategy. We need to increase our sales. We have our targets. Like, we know what to do." Fantastic. But when I said to them, "Okay, so what are the ways in which you're going to get those results? What's most important to drive sales and increase your revenue?" Turned out that actually everyone had a lot of different answers, right? Which then brought up where they were going to focus their priorities and where they needed to change the organization. And then, when I asked them, "Well, how do you think that's going to impact other parts of the organization?" They're like, "Well, I haven't really thought about that. And so helping them understand, even though their strategy was clear, it was clear at a really high level. But when you click down in terms of where would you direct people in terms of prioritizing their energy and working together, it wasn't so clear. And so, part of the work became how do we actually have those conversations, rather than, "There's something wrong with the team."

[00:23:09] Roy Notowitz: Yeah, well, so it seems like no matter how high-performing or successful a team is, there's always an opportunity to take it to the next level.

[00:23:18] Stacey Philpot: I think that's true. It's like relationships, right? If you don't work on certain relationships, they may be okay, but they're not going to be great. And part of what I'll often ask a team leader is: what are you willing to leave to chance versus what do you need to address consciously? And if you think your team is performing well enough that you can leave certain things to chance, do, and focus your energy other places.

[00:23:40] Roy Notowitz: Right.

[00:23:41] Ted Freeman: I think another way of thinking about your question, Roy, goes back to what we know about high-performing teams, which is that it's really hard to stay high-performing. And that teams need to continually be thinking about how they're performing, how they're integrating their strategy, their work on change. It's a continuous process.

[00:24:00] Roy Notowitz: Yeah, and developing their own leadership and feeling like they're growing as a leader as well probably keeps them engaged.

[00:24:07] Ted Freeman: As individual leaders, yeah. Another thing that leadership teams always need to be thinking about is leading the teams below them. And there are a number of teams that Stacey and I have worked with over the last couple of years where they sort of sit around saying, "Well, we set the goals, and we establish all of these KPIs, and everybody knows what the priorities are. Why is it that the people below us don't think much of us as a team?" And one of the things that we work with those teams on is creating a narrative or creating a story about the function and about the leadership team that people can get excited about. And that story, you know, usually the arc of it is a kind of past, present, future where we say, you know, "Who have we been, either as a function or as an organization? What has been amazing about us? What are we proud of that we want to continue to carry forward? And then what's happening in this moment? What is the context that we're in? What are the strengths that we have that we can leverage? And what are the actual things that are, you know, not so great in this moment? What are the negatives? What are the challenges? What are the obstacles that we're going to have to overcome?" And that then provides a context for: and this is where we're going. Which is more about the future, so that people are really understanding now, "Why are we having these goals? Why do we have these KPIs in this way?" And then finally, there's a really important accountability piece, which is, as we move forward, here's what you can expect from us as your leadership team. Oh and also, by the way, these are the things that we're going to need from you. So that you start setting the expectations for people about, "First of all, you can hold us accountable to these things, but also we're going to need more of this from you going forward." And that kind of narrative can be really helpful in doing one of the core things that the leadership team needs to do, which is engage the people below them.

[00:26:25] Stacey Philpot: If we think about, "What are the trends?" Or, "What's really important to help teams perform well?" is, I think, actually talking with each other about how they handle stress. And that's something that I don't think teams wanted to do 20 years ago, right? Like, it's different. It's increased since Covid, like, people are more comfortable being real to a certain extent on teams.

[00:26:47] Roy Notowitz: Yeah.

[00:26:47] Stacey Philpot: We've talked a little bit today about what would help a team, but we haven't talked about what derails a team or really causes problems. And if people think about their own experiences, and you think about working on teams, what usually causes a team to be ineffective is when people aren't dealing with negative emotions very well. I mean, it's kind of human nature. And, when you have one person who's not dealing with negative emotions well, it's difficult. When you have a group of people who aren't dealing with negative emotions well, gets really complicated. And often what happens is when one person is stressed, they do a behavior that isn't great, and that then stresses another person, and then they do a behavior that isn't great, and now you're, like, cycling through the group. And so, one of the things we do -- you can think of it as wellness or proactive -- is we actually help teams have a conversation about negative emotions.

[00:27:40] Ted Freeman: One of the things that can be helpful in those situations is to help people get better at identifying, for themselves and for others, three things: one, what it is that causes you stress. Two, what you look like. And three, what you need in those moments. And everybody's different around those things, and that's hard because, you know, one of the most challenging things about being human is that we assume that everybody else is just like us. But the truth is that when I get stressed out, I may pull back from situations. I may be more reserved, I may want more quiet time for myself, and somebody else may be bossy or more volatile under stressful situations. But when I see them being bossy, I just think, "Oh, they're being bossy and isn't that unpleasant?" But I might not think, "Oh, they're actually under stress. I am, as their partner, maybe able to help them in some way." So, not only do people look different when they're under stress, but they need different things when they're under stress.

[00:28:49] Stacey Philpot: And sometimes those things conflict, right? When people are stressed, often their stress response directly conflicts with the help or the support that they need to recenter. So, I'll use myself as an example. As work piles up or things get really demanding, what I tend to do is feel that I just need to get through it and just do it myself. And I will sometimes even push people away, get really quiet, be like, "I got this, no worries," when actually, what I need is to pull people on my team closer to me and help me.

[00:29:20] Ted Freeman: So, because Stacey and I have worked together for a long time, and this is something that she's talked to me about, and that she knows about herself, when I sense that she's taking on too much, I actually can push back against that and say, "It seems like you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of things and that you've told me that your response to that is often to say, 'Okay, well I'll just double down. I'll do more. I'll stay up late. I'll pick up all the pieces.' What if I did some of that? What if we could shift some of that to one of our other partners?" And usually you have to take a moment to say like, "Oh, wait a minute. Like, I'm not ready to give this up," and then you're relieved, actually.

[00:30:04] Stacey Philpot: Totally. And I'm like, "Oh, is that an option?" And then that takes my stress down, and I can be a much better team member. And so part of this is helping everybody on the team understand each other more deeply. Providing empathy and support in that moment is what makes people feel like they're on a high-performing team. When Ted sees that I'm stressed and he says, basically, "I've got your back. Let me help you," I'm like, "Oh, I am part of a high-performing team." And that's actually what underlies what people really want at work. And so helping them understand this can really increase their engagement, and how they feel like they can work together.

[00:30:43] Roy Notowitz: That's fantastic. Talk us through a team that progressed to become high-performing over time. What are some examples?

[00:30:51] Ted Freeman: So, strategy, I think people understand. Change, people tend to understand. Whether they're doing them well is another question. Integration I think is sometimes harder for people to understand. So let me just give you an example. When I was an executive at Eileen Fisher, we had an unusual leadership structure where there was a six-person CEO. So that was an environment where working together as a team was incredibly important. And I remember one time that our head of communications, after an all hands meeting, came to me and she said, "That was amazing." And I said, "Well, what was so different?" And she said, "Just as a team, you really showed up very well." and I said, "I know, but how was this different from meetings that we've had like this in the past?" And she said, "Well. It's really clear to me that you've been working at understanding what one another are doing, and what each of your different functions needs." She said, "It came across so clearly because somebody asked a question and you answered it by talking about an aspect of marketing." I was a head of People and Culture. She said, "The marketing person answered a question that really, you know, was a finance question. So it was almost like you were finishing each other's sentences."

[00:32:15] Roy Notowitz: That's great. I can see how every team and every company can benefit from this type of work. Obviously, you don't work with every company and every team, but you work with so many, and I'm curious, how do the leaders that engage you build a case for investing time, energy, and money into this type of work within their organization to get buy-in and support.

[00:32:39] Stacey Philpot: I think part of it goes back to thinking about where do you want to put your time, energy, and resources, and what matters most to your business? I really think that leaders need to think about, with teams, what do they want to leave to chance, and where do they want to support them? Ted and I have been working with one company where they realized, after a large reorganization, that almost a third of the people at their company either had new leaders or were on new teams. And that amount of change was creating a big risk to their business continuity, and they didn't want to leave that to chance. And so, what they did is they picked 10 teams that were critical, that they knew had to execute well, and they invested in them and said, "We are not going to leave this team performance to chance. We're going to help them." So part of it is thinking about where are the groups of people who, if they don't work together, we're not going to achieve our objectives and be successful? And what support do those teams need? That's usually a good business decision. Another thing to think about is, we often think about teams and high performance, but teams are also carriers of culture. And sometimes when you work with teams in a consistent way, you actually end up driving culture change, right? So, we worked with one client where we're bringing the same frameworks and tools to a bunch of teams, and that begins to be kind of a groundswell of how people change their language and how they start to work together. A lot of companies ask us, "Well, I really want more innovation, more higher performance," and a lot of individual people we talk about go, "I'm really getting burned out at work. I need better balance." Bringing those two things together, the nexus of where those issues come together, is usually on a team. And so, if you look at how do you increase a person's sense of wellbeing on their team and engagement, you're going to get more innovation and performance. So that's kind of where they link. And I think helping business leaders say, "If you want more innovation and higher performance, we've got to get our teams working better together," is kind of a no-brainer for most folks.

[00:34:44] Ted Freeman: People spend a huge amount of time with their teammates and with their teams, and my hope for them is that it's both more productive and more enjoyable.

[00:34:54] Stacey Philpot: I feel like if I can help people be more comfortable being who they are on teams, I believe they're going to do better work and companies are going to benefit. And there is just a lot we know about how people interact, and interpersonal dynamics, and teams that we can share and help people be more effective. And, if you think about it, no one really gives us training on how to be on a team other than that school paper we had to do in college that we didn't like. So, I think there's a lot of opportunity to help people better understand how they can be more effective on teams.

[00:35:26] Roy Notowitz: That makes a lot of sense, and I can see how, whether you're a large company or a really small company, there's opportunities for every type of organization. I think maybe your approach or the scenarios might be somewhat different, given the context for scope and scale of folks' roles and things like that, but it's fascinating work. And there are so many tensions and truths around teams and how they work together, and so this topic is just absolutely fascinating. I really appreciate the work that you do with our clients and the clients that you work with on your own as well. Really appreciate you taking time to share your knowledge and your expertise on the podcast. Thanks so much.

[00:36:05] Ted Freeman: Yeah. Thank you, Roy. It's always great to be with you and love doing the work that we do with the whole Noto Group team.

[00:36:12] Stacey Philpot: Thanks so much, Roy. It was a pleasure to be with you today.

[00:36:16] Roy Notowitz: Thanks for tuning in to How I Hire, visit howihire.com for more details about the podcast. While exploring the site, you can also check out past episodes featuring Ted and Stacey. How I Hire is created by Noto Group Executive Search. To find out more about us, visit notogroup.com. You can also sign up for our monthly email job alert newsletter there and find additional job search strategy resources and content on hiring. This podcast was produced by Anna McClain. To learn more about her and her team's work, visit aomcclain.com.

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