Darryl Stickel on Building Trust for successful collaboration
Darryl Stickel on Building Trust for successful collaboration

I was at a conference held at Duke that was labeled Building Trust in Institutions, and overwhelmingly what they talked about was the lack of trust. There was a real shortage of conversation about how to actually build it, how to make things better.

I think the one that's most prevalent is probably the belief held by most of us that we're trustworthy. I think the research suggests that 95% of people believe they're more trustworthy than average. Not only is that statistically impossible, but it creates problems for us because we have this profound lack of awareness about who we trust and how much we trust them.

…Perceived uncertainty and perceived vulnerability are the basis of trust and they combine: Uncertainty times vulnerability gives us a level of perceived risk.

It's about me becoming more trustworthy. It's not about building trust in some space between us. It's about me saying, “I'm gonna take responsibility for understanding how trustworthy I am,” and then pulling these levers move the needle on that.


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Team CollaborationCarlos Valdes-DapenaTrustComment
Psychological Safety
Psychological Safety

“If I could help every leader learn how to practice self-coaching instead of self-criticism, we could change the world…There’s tons of research on loneliness, the stressors of being a leader, ways in which we bring our own biases to the workplace. If, instead of negative self talk, I focus on speaking to myself with kindness, I’d change the structure of my brain and how I respond to challenges.

“I am better able to support others and have more citizenship behavior, caring for others, when I practice self-compassion. How? How do I create psychological safety as a leader AND maintain my boundaries, take care of my needs, listen to myself?”

That’s what Dr. Polizzi and Verdant Consulting starts with when working with their clients: start with yourself first.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-Dapenapsychological safety, team behaviorComment
Stay Curious: Lead with Positivity
Stay Curious: Lead with Positivity

I think the first thing is that everybody’s human. Everybody has good moments and they have bad moments. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a colleague was from Mars, in a moment like that: assume positive intent. Everybody wants to get to a good place; nobody wakes up in the morning wanting to do a terrible job or frustrate you. That was a great piece of advice. Then, the second piece he added to that: remain curious. What he meant by that was, if we’re having a disagreement, it isn’t necessarily with each other. It’s with whatever idea we’re debating. So one of the two of us, in a given moment, has to be more curious about understanding the other’s view to bridge whatever that difference is.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaTrust, resilience, political agendas, positivityComment
Accountability, Courage and Jerks
Accountability, Courage and Jerks

I've interviewed a lot of the senior presidents over the last few years about lessons learned. One of the global presidents said, “Look Foxy, one of the biggest learnings I've had was I didn't act fast enough. When I inherited the team I kept trying to turn it around and cut more slack to these certain individuals. And in hindsight, I wish I'd acted earlier. And that is a common thing I hear from many, many of their general managers. And sometimes that individual is thankful when you tap them on the shoulder and say, look, this isn't working out. because they know it and they're just not living up to it. And it's heartbreaking to see someone drive themselves into the ground into a role they're never going to flourish in. How long do you hang on to someone and keep trying to turn around before you say it's probably more humane for everyone involved to, to cut ties and find something else for them to do where they maybe are a better fit.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaAccountability, CourageComment
Humility, Vulnerability and Leadership with Mark Ippolito
Humility, Vulnerability and Leadership with Mark Ippolito

In this complex world that we live in today, employees, leaders, customers, shareholders - we all have opinions, and we all have experience we draw from, but, boy, I tell you, in so many industries, we’re creating new pathways, new endpoints. So we all have to be willing to say we don’t know the answer.

Look, machines, AI - it is here, it is now. It is not some future state, it’s not something that you should be thinking about and planning for in five years, no. It’s right now. It’s transforming our lives today. So just (a.) recognizing that, but (b.) not being afraid of it. What machines don’t do is deal with unconnected or unrelated scenarios, which we humans do very instinctively.

I have strengths. I have weaknesses. I’m very clear about where they are, and I articulate those to my team all the time. And what I reinforce with them is, “You have strengths.” Focus on what you can enable this team to do, and then put all of your efforts, all of your intellect, all of your emotion, all of your heart into supporting strengths and letting those people flourish around their strengths.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-Dapenapsychological safety, vulnerability, humility, artificial intelligence, emotional intelligenceComment
Gratitude Infusion with Kerry Wekelo
Gratitude Infusion with Kerry Wekelo

Brené Brown.
She’s such a good storyteller, but she also is such a researcher. She said that the number one thing when people are having extreme hardships in their lives - from losing a child to a house burning down to losing a high-figure job - she discovered with her research was that the people who moved through the quickest are the ones that are focused on gratitude. What they were still grateful for. “Maybe my house burned down, but I’m alive.” That simplistic of a thing, that was the number one thing. And she was blown away that it was gratitude.

Michael Steger, I’ve looked at his research. You can have twins where one twin would be more predisposed to be grateful, and the other one is more negative, having a more negative connotation. It’s just kind of how you’re hardwired. It’s almost like you’re working out, you have to work out that gratitude muscle. And I always say there’s this cumulative impact if you always go to gratitude first, or always go to “How can I move out of this situation in a positive way?”

If you breathe and have a moment of gratitude, you’re going to feel pretty good pretty quickly.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaGratitude, psychological safetyComment
Kula, Culture and Community
Kula, Culture and Community

“So, you know the old saying: fish stinks from the head. What I hear with that saying is that a leader can really determine the culture of a community, for good or for ill. And I feel when my students saw the way I treated each individual student, they learned to treat one another with that same degree of respect and warmth, and to really take the time to see one another as individuals and as human beings, to see their vulnerabilities and their strengths.”

If I were to distill a lesson for people managers out of this, it would certainly be start with hearing and seeing the individual, as a foundation of building a collaborative environment at both the beginning and the end.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaCulture, yoga, Team motivationComment
Bringing Your Whole Self to Teams
Bringing Your Whole Self to Teams

“I discovered early on was that people were in a different place. When we meet as a team, we allow more time for the check-in, to talk about their personal lives with their families and about their business lives.

“Early on, when I was a team member, I’d had a very difficult week personally and was worried about both my kids. In the team meeting, I was having all these conversations with people and I realized at the end of the week that I hadn’t shared with anybody how I was feeling. And the reason I hadn’t shared it with anybody is because nobody had asked.

“What I’ve discovered is when you create that space to check-in at the beginning of the meeting, it brings a presence and a sense of connectedness, even over long distances, that I think has sustained us.”

Read more to discover how and why checking in authentically at a team meeting’s start is deeply beneficial and, to Sylvia, essential.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaTrust, psychological safety, MarsComment
Being Right vs Leading Effectively
Being Right vs Leading Effectively

When I was younger I used to take on senior leaders. I think I had that small-man syndrome and always wanted to push back, but I would do it within wider groups. It was almost manipulative and point-scoring. As a former sales and marketing person, I did it quite well, but it wasn't respectful. Please, do this respectfully and hopefully a good boss will respond well to it.

My current view is,

1. You need to have that conversation. If you don't it will gnaw away at your psyche and you'll regret not having it.

2. You need to be very respectful in the way you have this conversation. Do it on a one-on-one basis. Do not make it personal. Qualify why you are feeling like this and how it sits within your values. Once you've raised it, be open to consider the other person's point of view.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-Dapenateam relationships, respect, DignityComment
Design Thinking Collaboration
Design Thinking Collaboration

I'm talking about matching to the task. You have this goal, and you have to construct whatever work unit is best able to fulfill that goal. If it's something where I'm trying to produce innovation then you want the sufficient and necessary perspectives that will actually help you to arrive at the answer or the innovation that you're after. Design thinking is basically trying to figure out, how do we take the team from divergent thinking to convergent thinking, people with a lot of diversity of opinions and perspectives - to align on something useful?

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaDesign Thinking, Academic Research, Visual CommunicationComment
Visual Facilitation
Visual Facilitation

People have art trauma. Maybe in 3rd or 4th grade, a teacher said something about something they drew, and from that moment on they decided they were not good at drawing. And they’re going to hold onto that for their whole life. I have a 2-day Visual Facilitation Boot Camp that I teach. I’m so proud of people who come and say that they can’t draw, and sign up for this 2-day intense deep dive into drawing. And the truth is they can draw. The crazy thing is that they can, but they have this belief that they can’t. Are they going to be Leonardo DaVinci? Absolutely not. The number one thing I tell folks is it doesn’t have to be fancy to be effective. We’re not going for representational drawing, where I want you to draw exactly all the light hitting this coffee cup. I just want you to simplify it down to the basic lines so you’re communicating, “coffee cup.” That’s it.

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Team CollaborationCarlos Valdes-DapenaGraphic Facilitation, Graphic Recording, Visual Facilitation, Visual CommunicationComment
Drawing Collaboration
Drawing Collaboration

Meet Tom Russell of InkyThinking, an extraordinarily talented graphic facilitator and consultant tor teams and organizations. We asked him to describe the difference between graphic facilitation and graphic recording, and their benefits to their mission, their vision and their future:

“The distinction between graphic facilitation and graphic recording is graphic recording is passive. You may have been to a conference where someone is capturing on a large piece of paper or digitally, the key points in the messages from the conversation or presentation. So building up an engaging visual picture which then forms a visual reminder of the conversation that is often given to participants after a conference or a meeting. Graphic facilitation is much more active with a group. It’s the group that is putting the information on the chart.

“Example: Working with a group to understand quite simply what their vision is. We used large charts, Post-its, getting that view out and being able to see it, alter it, and explore it, draw that ambition in or push that ambition out to make it even more stretching.”

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Team CollaborationCarlos Valdes-DapenaGraphic Facilitation, Graphic Recording, VisualizationComment
Intuitive Leadership
Intuitive Leadership

Dean Newlund, founder of Mission Facilitators and author of THE BUSINESS OF INTUITION, likes working with businesses and organizations with purpose-centered teams and organizations who, quite frankly, are trying to change their own world. His company wants to support them in being able to reach those larger goals. And while data is extremely valuable, senior leaders tend to decide with their gut or intuition instead of responding to metrics.

“What I understand is, the higher up you go in an organization, the more important intuition becomes because it makes you a better listener, a better strategic planner, a better problem solver. We don't necessarily allow the entire rank and file to tap into that intuitive side. When we do we start seeing more engagement, better ideas, better creativity.”

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-Dapenaintuition, Trust, mission statement, vision statement, VisualizationComment
Emotional Freedom at Work
Emotional Freedom at Work

I think the place for emotions is two-fold: one is a guidance system so that you know when it’s time to clean up your thinking. If you’re feeling a negative emotion like embarrassment, anger, resentment, frustration, irritation, they all feel bad, don’t they? So really there are only 2 emotions: one feels good, one feels bad: there are just lots of names for them. If you’re feeling bad, you know that you’re focused on something negative, fearful, lacking, contracted. So, it’s time for you to reassess and ask different questions. That’s number one: knowing that you alone have the power to determine what something means.

The second one is it’s a reminder for you to intervene consciously, because so many of the emotions that we experience are just patterns. We are triggered by something.

[Listen to ore read the full transcript.]


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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-Dapenateam behavior, emotional toxicityComment
Keep Teams Dreaming with Angela Mangiapane
Keep Teams Dreaming with Angela Mangiapane

“If I were to start today, going back to the role that I had, we would do things differently. I would say let's look at our purpose.” Angela Mangiapane was leading an HR group in Latin America in which everyone insisted their needs were different and misunderstood. She somehow managed to refocus them into visualizing what Mars Latin America might look like in 10 years. From there, they planned their talent needs, even their billing operations. She had them do dreaming exercises as a tool to get things delivered. Her team is now energized, doing sprints and stand-up meetings. Hear her stories here.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaVisualization, dreaming, problem solving, Team motivationComment
Team Power, Hierarchy Flexibility...and Hippos with Dr. Lindy Greer
Team Power, Hierarchy Flexibility...and Hippos with Dr. Lindy Greer

Dr. Lindy Greer, U Michigan Ross School of business, has done a lot research on how organizations’ power hierarchy affects team operations and collaboration. She found that the net effect of hierarchy on teams was negative. Small, but negative. Listen or read this interview to find out when hierarchy flexibility of power can be applied to enhance trust, participation, collaboration and when the hierarchical power structure enhances a team’s effectiveness. Then hear how her brilliant hippo analogy can apply to your team.

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Team LeadershipCarlos Valdes-DapenaTrust, team behaviorComment