Side Mirror: Margie Oleson on using the Top Team Accelerator to build cohesive leadership teams.

Margie Oleson is a dynamic executive coach and leadership virtuoso armed with a doctorate in Organization Development.

With a strategic blend of expertise and innovation, Margie empowers leaders and their teams to forge robust foundations for collaboration and productivity.

Navigating diverse industries from aeronautics to fintech, Margie’s client roster reads like a global who’s who. Her pioneering approach has redefined sectors including Financial Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Nonprofits.

At the heart of her legacy lies the Top Team Accelerator, a transformative force driving senior leaders and their teams to master change and drive enduring advancements.

Margie thrives on sculpting unified, high-performing teams. Her unique methodology turns leadership squads into cohesive forces, translating to elevated performance across the board.

I love working with teams myself and was excited to talk with Margie and learn more about her approach. I'm pleased to share our conversation here and I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

LinkedIn: Margie Oleson

Website: Oleson Consulting

Thank you to our sponsors:

ASKE Consulting
Email: hello@askeconsulting.co.uk

Aquilae
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk

Episode Directory on Instagram @careerviewmirror  

If you enjoy listening to our guests career stories, please follow CAREER-VIEW MIRROR in your podcast app. 

Episode recorded on 16 October, 2023.

Transcript

Ed Eppley: 0:00

I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida.

Sherene Redelinghuys: 0:03

I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand,

Daniel van Treeck: 0:05

Prague in the Czech Republic,

Osman Abdelmoneim: 0:07

Cairo in Egypt,

Holger Drott: 0:08

Auckland, New Zealand,

Shannon Faulkner: 0:09

London, England.

Andy Follows: 0:10

Welcome to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you pick your own. I'm your host, Andy Follows. Hello, listeners, and welcome to this Side Mirror episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. If you're a regular listener, thank you and welcome back, you'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people with a link to the automotive industry who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers, listen to their stories and learn from their experiences. We also publish these Side Mirror episodes in which we introduce guests or topics related to careers or developing ourselves or people we lead parents or mentor that we trust you'll find valuable. For this episode I'm joined by Margie Oleson. Margie is a dynamic executive coach and leadership virtuoso armed with a doctorate in organisational development. With a strategic blend of expertise and innovation. Margie empowers leaders and their teams to forge robust foundations for collaboration and productivity. Navigating diverse industries from aeronautics to FinTech Margie's client roster reads like a global who's who her pioneering approach has redefined sectors including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and nonprofits. At the heart of her legacy lies the top team accelerator, a transformative for striving senior leaders and their teams to master change and drive enduring advancements. Margie thrives on sculpting unified high performing teams, her unique methodology turns leadership squads into cohesive forces translating to elevate it performance across the board. I love working with teams myself, and I was excited to talk with Margie and learn more about her approach. I'm pleased to share our conversation here. And I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. Hello, Margie, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?

Margie Oleson: 2:20

Hello, Minneapolis, Minnesota in the USA.

Andy Follows: 2:24

And you're very welcome. Thank you for joining me. And I have to point out that it's 530 in the morning with you, which is from my point of view, I think that shows extreme dedication. But you're telling me that you're an early riser.

Margie Oleson: 2:36

I love this work and I love to talk about it.

Andy Follows: 2:39

I love this work, too. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Can we start with a little bit of your background, please. So you're in? You're in Minneapolis. Now. Is that where you're from? Is that where you grew up?

Margie Oleson: 2:50

Minneapolis is a part of the Twin Cities Minneapolis, St. Paul in Minnesota up near the Canadian border. And I am from here. I did live in other places in the US and I've travelled around the world. And then I'm back here and I'm based here.

Andy Follows: 3:03

It's not a part of the world I know particularly well. I did check it out just before we spoke so I could picture whereabouts on the map you obviously they're very central in the in the north there. Can we start them talking a little bit about the sort of work that you do. And then we'll drill down into some more detail on how you do that.

Margie Oleson: 3:20

Yep. So I have spent several decades working in organisations in corporate America and we have many Fortune 500 headquarters right here in this area that I live in, and so made the rounds to several of them but also worked in a lot of different industries, sizes of organisations. And along the way, I was curious why the issue seems similar company after company type size, culture, the issue seemed to be similar with teams and organisations and whereas that never going to open a toaster or lift the hood of the car. I thought I'm not sure I understand organisations what is happening here? Why is this so challenging? And so later in life, I went back to university and got a doctorate degree in organisation development. And as I was moving through four years of coursework, I continue to learn that we know what we need to know about organisations, we know what we need to know at that point, it was 30 years now we're 40 Plus, on the primary principles of teams, the primary principles of leadership, the primary principles of how to get all that complexity pulled together in a cohesive manner. And so if we had the information and it was vetted and vetted and vetted and taken from academia and turned into very practical advice for leaders and organisations, then what was the disconnection, where was the gap? And so my dissertation was basically subtitled What the heck, what is going on in organisations? And so I did research experts, actual leaders, leading teams, people who We've been leading teams practitioners, who focused on teams and then national international experts on teams. And the bottom line is, organisations are left to their own devices and making it up as they go along. Because probably, we grew up talking, listening, being a part of groups, we go into organisations talking, listening being a part of groups. So we think it just works that way. And then all of the issues that leaders have, which by the way, most of them have pretty similar issues, they may not feel comfortable talking about them, they may think they're the only ones and they can't talk about it. But most of those issues they all have, and they lead back to they'd go directly back to the issues of how do we best behave together, communicate together, manage the complexity of all of those different pieces, and folded into what the leader is going after, in organisation. So I was excited to learn that there were answers. And now it's my passion to help organisations know because they really don't know. And they want to do better, and they can do better. They would have to approach it the way they approach some other other capabilities. Just be intentional about it, bring in your experts, look at what you're doing that's not working and make some change.

Andy Follows: 6:19

Wow, you're definitely passionate about it, I can feel that I love that example. If you wouldn't take a toaster apart, you wouldn't go under the hood of your car. But for you the curiosity was around why a team is behaving the way they do wire organisations behaving the way they do. And I like that point you make about there's no sort of formal transition, there's no, we drift into workplace teams into workplace conversations, and nobody addresses it. When you leave school. When you leave college university, you arrive in the workplace, no one's saying, Okay, we're going to have to be really intentional about how we communicate with each other. Because it's not how we've normally been doing things that's going to really move the needle. And so it just gets left. And you notice that and so you spent quite a lot of time in corporate America if you'd like I'm not sure if that was your phrase or the one that I picked up. But so what sort of organisations were you working with before you became an entrepreneur?

Margie Oleson: 7:15

What type of organisation so with the headquarters, we have here, eco lab, Cargill, Target, Ameriprise. I've done work for insurance industry, all the way to military, higher education, government, nonprofit, for profit. And the issues are similar. They have all of these different aspects of the organisation, and how to pull it all together. And it starts with the leader and our first leaders are the people that were around when we were born. We didn't come with a manual, they didn't know necessarily how to do that. And one of the things that we focus on in my programme is we just be really clear about habits. And so these leaders, these leadership teams are operating under habits. And so when we say that culture eats strategy for breakfast, I would say that our habits, our eating our strategy, and when they say culture is so difficult to change, that's true. But what they're really saying is, our habits need to be changed. And then we can change our culture. And so we focus on the things that we know, but then we apply it by helping us shift into different behaviours and different habits. And when we come up, so we have the people that we started with our first leaders, and then anybody living in the household are our first teams, then we we get a job or we join a team at school, we're doing music or something with other people. And then we start to go off into our adulthood. And all of those group dynamics that we've been learning, we were learning from people who also didn't know how to do it, who also didn't have a playbook, then we move into the job world and each leader that we have, that's how we're learning leadership. And that is what is so interesting, and really we need to focus on is we can hire for legal and we do that we would never put our legal up to chance. So we make sure they went to law school and they pass the bar and they have experience in the areas of expertise that we're looking for. We would never leave our financials up to ourselves. Once we grow a business to a certain size because we need to get it right. We have to be legal, we need to make sure that we're maximising profit and minimising expenses and outlays for things like taxes, we would not do that ourselves. But there is this lack of understanding that the art and science of leadership and team dynamics team development is all proven and is something that if you have the knowledge, and you can help it in the way that helps you change your course, from the habits that you've all been on the collective habits and the individual habits and you learn the information about how to Do things and you begin to have real conversations, you really can turn that ship.

Andy Follows: 10:05

So I can just jump in Sorry, can I just jump in March because I really appreciate what you're saying here. And I it resonates with me that we don't talk about leadership in the same way, or we don't look at the requirements for leadership in the same way that we look at the requirements to be the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Risk Officer, the General Counsel, those other positions in the business, we have a really clear idea, know that you have to have trained for this, and you have to have deep sector expertise and knowledge, etc. that I mean, yes, there's, informally there's an expectation that they need to have some leadership skills, but not you've been back and you've studied this, you, your curiosity took you back to study this in depth to doctorate level and you realise, wow, there's a whole canon here of work that's been done to establish what are the issues that are happening? And how do we resolve those? And what does the idea look like, etc. And that's not taken for granted. That's not the norm. So I can understand why you were motivated them to do more. So just for context, Can I Can I just ask, so when you will have been working with all these organisations? Have you been independent for most of your career, or were you an employee, at some point,

Margie Oleson: 11:16

I was an employee, and then a contractor for many years, and what finally helped me so I had an idea that I would like to be an entrepreneur, and then I avoided it, and I avoided it, and I avoided it. And I was in this place with my own learning, where I was laid off several times, I was fired several times. And each time I thought, and I was a single parent. And so each time I thought I can do better, I can be a better team player, I can offer fewer opinions, I can do the straight and narrow. And even it didn't matter what I did, what I was took me a while to finally accept is that my personality is very aware of what's happening in organisations. And a better role for me is to be able to come in and be honest. And as an employee, even as a contractor inside the group, there's not a level of honesty that you need to get to, to be high performing. And so one of the things we do in my programme is begin to be honest with each other. That's one of the pillars of the programme, they're not having real conversations right now Ness,

Andy Follows: 12:24

no. And for your benefit, and for my listeners benefit, we are going to dive into what you do and how you what you currently or what you typically come across and how and how your your model works, how your programme works. I'm curious also, though, for for myself, and for those listeners who are also have these thoughts about you making the transition between being a corporate employee and becoming an entrepreneur, so you had, it was clear. I mean, it sounds like it will be a fascinating story. This is not what this episode is about. Would it be a fascinating story to go into the number of those incidents? And when you did find yourself in difficult times? And how it sounds like you blamed yourself a little bit. Okay, so what do I need to do differently to stop this happening? At the same time, you were noticing these things that weren't right about how teams worked, and about how businesses work. So you said for a long time you harbour the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, you put it off, you put it off, you put it off? What was the final changing point, if you like, and just briefly tell me about that, please. I'm curious.

Margie Oleson: 13:23

So each roll, I was just sure this was the one where I had the formula, right? I had managed my curiosity, I had managed my giving opinions and and released my attachment to the outcomes. So I was releasing my view that I had to do anything about what was happening. And then what was happening wasn't changing. And then after several months and years into that, I was a miserable employee, because things weren't going well. And so there I am a recipient of the type of leadership that I work very hard to help organisations shift from. And really the number one ingredient for leadership is self awareness. And I was learning I was developing my self awareness by watching how I show up and what I was able to bring. And most all of it was not used most all of it was squelched. I was like a flame that was snuffed out over and over again. And I can I can tell you, this is what's happening throughout organisations and so there I was almost like I was going to want to tell that story someday so I had to be in it but it was a very difficult role. Single Parent risk averse, my job like everyone else's means a lot to me my my ability to pay my you know, my hope for my home for food on the table. All of that is my primary goal. And so having a wonderful life, that's all great and the first thing is when I go to work, do I feel comfortable with what I bring and with how it's going and I I saw leaders of every stripe, every possible profile style, making some of the similar errors. And I finally thought that for me, this is not good for my health. This is not good for the goals, the other goals I'm setting in my life, I want to be I want to have a great life. And this is not working. I'm going to take the experts recommendations that I've been ignoring for 20 years. And I'm going to realise that I have something to offer. It's a niche, they really need it. And my job is to take what I learned in my dissertation process, because the information is not the problem, the gap in understanding and the accessibility and the execution is where the challenges are. And I'm actually an execution expert. And I figured that out along the way. That's really where I can help.

Andy Follows: 15:50

Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by ASKE Consulting who are experts in executive search, resourcing solutions and talent management across all sectors of the automotive industry in the UK and Europe. I've known them for almost 20 years and I can think of no more fitting sponsor for CAREER-VIEW MIRROR. They're the business we go to at Aquilae when we're looking for talent for our clients and for projects that we're working on. ASKE was founded by Andrew McMillan, whose own automotive career includes board level positions with car brands and leasing companies, all as consultants have extensive client side experience, which means they bring valuable insight and perspective for both their employer and candidate customers. My earliest experience of working with Andrew was back in 2004, when he helped me hire regional managers for my leasing Sales Team at Alphabet. More recently, when Aquilae was helping a US client to establish a car subscription business. ASKE Consulting was alongside as helping us to develop our people strategy, and to identify and bring onboard suitable talent. Clients we've referred to ASKE have had an equally positive experience. Andrew and the team at ASKE are genuinely interested in the long term outcomes for you and the people they place with you. They even offer the reassurance of a two year performance guarantee, which means they have skin in the game when working with you. If you're keen to secure the most talented and high potential people to accelerate your business and gain competitive advantage, do get in touch with them and let them know I sent you. You can email Andrew the team at hello@askeconsulting.co.uk or check out their website for more details and more client feedback at www.askeconsulting.co.uk. ASKE is spelt A S K E? You'll find these contact details in the show notes for this episode. Okay, let's get back to our episode. So there was a point where you did you walk away from a job and think right, I'm gonna start on my own? Or did you manage to keep some work going and gradually build up your practice? How have you done that transition?

Margie Oleson: 17:58

Yes, I know, I pieced it all together, I never had a gap. I'm not comfortable with gaps. And someday maybe the they'll I'll be working fewer hours or doing less. But for right now, I'm at the stages where I am growing the business and doing everything and I have helped obviously. And no, I have not taken a break. And I have to meet everyone, when you're on an entrepreneurial journey, you have to the most important thing for any person is how comfortable you feel with what you're doing. So you need X amount of dollars in the bank to feel like you're doing the equivalent of jumping off a cliff, which I've been told over and over again, it's not a clip, it's just a step. And you'll have everything you need when you get there. And it took me a while to trust that and believe that. But if you need X amount of dollars in the bank, or you need X amount of clients before you let go here, you got your hand on this trapeze, but you have to let that go before you get your hand on this trapeze, whatever is the most comfortable and for me, I knew what my structure needed to be. And I knew what would help me feel like I could take the risks and then began and the other thing that happened for me was when I really looked at what leaders were telling me in organisations, even though they hired me for one thing, they asked me to do many others as soon as they found out what I knew. And so those pieces I got nothing but positive reinforcement, and I actually was able to help see the changes that they're making in organisations. And once I had a few of those under my belt, I was able to shift my own trust for myself that there really is something here I really can bring this to the table and it really can be helpful

Andy Follows: 19:38

wonderful thank you for allowing me to ask you those questions about the journey up to now for me I've really value context and understanding and I think you sharing that it wasn't a straightforward Yeah, I woke up one morning and decided to do this there is complexity around it is less perhaps daunting than some people might think before you jump or before you swap trapezes and it can be calculated, especially if you describe yourself as a risk averse person. So I imagine you really dotted the I's and cross the T's before you absolutely made the transition. And then to find that I do have value here I am executing, I am helping people to, it reminded me of the conversation I had with a lady called Emma Weber not so long ago, where she was talking about crossing the knowing doing gap, helping people to cross that. So this is what you're talking about as well, helping people from going from knowing what they should be doing to actually being able to execute, and you had some experience of that, and it was working, and you could see the results. And that helped to shift your own confidence that no, absolutely doing the right thing. So let's talk about this thing that you are doing. Now, what are some of the typical behaviours that you identify with leadership teams that are holding them back.

Margie Oleson: 20:47

So it's interesting, they're not talking about this openly. And so it can feel really uncomfortable to listen to someone talking about what leaders are going through, because they think they're the only ones. But what I hear directly from leaders, and what I hear from my colleagues who also hear from leaders is, this is not how they thought it was going to be. So they had this view of being a leader, being the boss, being able to help people's lives, being able to lead a legacy being able to be written about because what they're doing is great, they can bring together a whole bunch of talented people and pull them into great success and then feel like it. But what the day to day turns out to be is they sort of feel like kindergarten instructor, a preschool teacher, they hired these fantastic people, people with great resumes, or they inherited them. So they move into a leadership role. And they've got this leadership team. And it's a group of subject matter experts or groups of people who have had a lot of experience in their field. And they come to the leader with their complaints. And they gossip about each other. And they go back to their teams, their own leadership teams, and they say negative things about each other. And they say the boss is the reason why we have to do this, or, and this is the greatest strategic challenge is they go back and they lead their team in the way they want to, instead of everyone is rowing in the direction of the leader, and the goals, the current goals and current priorities. And one of the misses for leadership is they don't realise that. So a thing that happened in my journey is I would be sitting on all these teams working with all these middle managers who were doing things that the leader didn't know. And were saying things that the leader didn't know. And we're putting the kibosh, the shutting down behaviours and activities that would have made for greater success. And the leader didn't know. So the lead has got all these people coming to them to solve problems instead of solving their own. And they don't even realise that somewhere in the organisation, bad things are happening that did not fit their values that do not fit what they think should be the culture of the organisation. And all of this is beyond their scope. And so we want to rein in, and they need the scope, and they need to lead the culture and we need to help them with that awareness and make those shifts

Andy Follows: 23:09

I can imagine if you were having this conversation explaining this, in the opening session with a team or leaders listening to this are going to be nodding, thinking, yeah, all of this stuff, I have to deal with these conversations, all of the things you describe, I can't imagine many people denying that no, that is the sort of stuff that that typically goes on,

Margie Oleson: 23:31

if I could just say the ones that deny are the ones that are really worried, or they're not going to be the high performers. And they're worried about that. But they're worried that this won't work, either. They've tried so many things, that they may also have roll their eyes and say, Oh, here's just another person trying what we haven't been able to achieve.

Andy Follows: 23:50

And so how do you go about addressing some of these behaviours that are so unhelpful?

Margie Oleson: 23:57

So we know that self awareness, emotional intelligence, whatever you want to call the ability to know how I impact others, and how I am impacted by others. That's really the number one leadership skill. And all of the ways that we have over, you know, decades upon decades, all the ways that we have created classes, brought in consultants created leadership development activities, they don't succeed for a variety of reasons. One of them is they don't keep at it. So the brain 99.99% of what's going on in the brain is autopilot so that all the resources are free for the potential of risk, the potential of threat, the potential of opportunity. So when I'm going about my day, I have to relearn those things every day. So when you want to teach someone the principles of effective leadership, because they're an expert at something else, they can't just hear about it one time. And so we build the way the brain works into the programme. We build how we change habits into The programme, and we don't start by building things like trust, or collaboration, we start with the building blocks that then which is raising awareness of what the actual work is that you're supposed to be working on and what's going on with each other. And what what are your teams working on? And how are you doing and who are you assessments, once we start to get down that path, and we keep at it, and we keep at it, trust starts to build, collaboration starts to build, and we talk openly, and it doesn't happen the first time, we talk openly about gossip, and complaining, and problem solving. So if you had a part of a chemical or a recipe that wasn't working, everyone would talk about it, focus on it until it was working, when you have gossip going on and you're not talking about it, you don't have to avoid that you should not have undiscussables. And this is a one year programme. And you cannot buy the one year programme, that we are one of the things I learned along the way. In my own journey to being an entrepreneur is I started with being able to sell different things I can do strategic planning, I'm really good at that. I don't want to do that that's not a as good a fit for me, as this focus on behaviours and dynamics. And so I had to learn to focus in and that's how this is. Another thing I learned is that leaders can't be pulled along. I'm not pulling anybody along. So we built a programme so that it is very methodical and logical and have successes built in right away. But the first thing we do is executive coaching for a few months. And then I begin to work with the team. And my team works with their team and with the leader to start the process, we start to do assessments, we fix your meetings right away, we do working genius, which I'd love to talk about that that's an amazing assessment and process, as we're getting to know each other, and the structure of the team and who's on the team. And then we can talk about if it's a fit, to do more, because you cannot do this in a month. You can't do leadership training for a week and have it stick the brain eventually is just going to be replacing it with a whole bunch of other things. So we have all kinds of ways to build into the programme, learning, talking about it, the leader leading it, practising it, making mistakes, drilling down into stubborn challenges, and all of it is very methodical, and then we move on to the next piece, all of it in a sequence. And the leader is learning the whole time how to do that. And the leader, the leadership team is learning how to lead their own teams that way as well.

Andy Follows: 27:36

Okay, let's see how much I've understood, then Margie. So it sounds very much like a process. You can't the bit I didn't understand you can't buy the 12 month programme.

Margie Oleson: 27:47

You can't i can't hand it to you. Oh, okay. You can't Yep. And you can't sign up for it. You can't say I'm ready to sign up for the one year programme. No, we start with a few months, and we see worth it.

Andy Follows: 27:59

Okay, I understand that. And then you start off with some executive coaching, would that be for each team member or just for the leader for

Margie Oleson: 28:06

the leader and the leadership team. So the pillars of the programme, there are four pillars, teamwork, accountability, the commitment piece, and the performance piece. And so we start with teamwork. So these leaders in organisations right now their biggest struggle is their team is not together, they're not cohesive, that's speaking with one voice, they're going back and leaving their own teams. And it may or may not be anything resembling what they the leader thinks they're working on, or what they're accomplishing, or which goals are current. And so we put all of that in and in everything we do, we do customise it for your culture for who's here for the leadership for the industry, but for but most of it is very methodical building blocks around knowing each other, and understanding the work. Yeah, and practising at letting go of the pieces that you've been focusing on that aren't the work that you're doing. And so we start there with the team forming as a cohesive team and where they have challenges might be the kind of challenges we address first, or it might be because they're not a fit for this right now.

Andy Follows: 29:13

Yeah. So I picked up that you you start with helping them to get really clear on what is the actual work that we are supposed to be doing? And how are we doing that? Let's have a look at that. I'm in the process of going through that with them and identifying exactly where they're at and where the gaps are, they start to come together. And that starts to build trust before you get into any unique trust building activity. It's already coming from giving them that clarity together. And it's got a name, hasn't it the programme? Is it top team team accelerator? And you also mentioned working genius, which is a Patrick Lencioni product, isn't it? So you love that say a little bit more about that.

Margie Oleson: 29:57

So working genius uses the acronym widget. There are six working geniuses, wonder invention, discernment, galvanising enablement and tenacity. And I'll speak about those in a minute. And what he and his colleagues notice. So here's the five dysfunctions of a team, you know, more than two decades ago, this of the advantage 2012, fantastic book, and where he pulled together all of his learnings about organisations, and along the way, and he's an inventive type. And he's been with the same team, his founders have all been together for decades. They it occurred to him and them along the way that there are some pieces missing, and they realise there's a sequence of activities when you're doing something new, or something is changing. And so you've got this group of people. And they designed this assessment for us to identify what are our working geniuses, everyone has two working geniuses of the widget acronym, two competencies, things we're really good at. But that doesn't mean they feed us they don't give us energy, or he uses the word joy. This is how you can have joy at work, which can make people feel very sceptical, but I know what he's talking about. And then there are two frustration.

Andy Follows: 31:08

So let me just jump in for people who've never heard of this before. So the working genius, it's like an attribute an assessment. Yeah, so there are six, six of them. And we would each have two that were really strong, a couple less so and a couple that we don't probably have.

Margie Oleson: 31:24

And these are indicators. These are our geniuses in teamwork and productivity. So how we do teamwork and productivity,

Andy Follows: 31:31

okay, so this is helping us raise our awareness and helping us raise our awareness of our colleagues, as well. So by the time

Margie Oleson: 31:39

the first thing that happens, anytime there's a change or anytime something is great, or something is a huge problem, people wonder, that's the W. So there are the those are the people that ask the questions, and then invention are the people who have ideas about that what to do about that D discernment are the people who without understanding how they know how to do this, they are able to connect dots and trends and remember things and say pretty quickly, I can size that up and say, you know, I don't think that's going to work, or Oh, my goodness, that's what we've been waiting for. And then GE is galvanising, the people in the organisation who pull people together to get stuff done. II are the people that know how to get things done and T tenacity. They are motivated by checking the completion box. Now, I made that sound very simple. When I took the assessment, and then I work through it with a facilitator for my results. I actually got a little teary eyed, I am a wonder, and a discerner. And so guess what the Wonder asks a lot of questions, because they are curious. And I have since taken the assessment I've looked around in my life. Not everyone is curious. I always thought we should all be curious. No, I only think that because I'm curious. Not everyone is curious. We don't need everyone to be curious. So the W people are asking the questions to the frustration, sometimes the people around them. And then the dissenters are the people with opinions. And I can size up a room when I walk in other people don't do that. They're busy taking apart the toaster. And so what happens when I look back at my life, and some of the challenges that I had, it was all those questions that I was asking, and all those opinions that I was giving. And so instead of feeling like that's a negative, or I want to sort of snap that out, that's who I am. And that's what I bring to the table. And I will say that when you have issues with not meeting schedules or deadlines or budgets, you can many times trace it back to this sequence of events did not go in a linear fashion. You are keep coming to meetings long after you've done the the wandering and the inventing and the galvanising to pull people together to get it started. And now you bring a wonder virtual meeting. And she's still asking questions when you've already got people planning for on the shop floor. And I wish that it was more complicated than that. But that is what is amazing about this assessment, it is brilliant. And if you are continuously rolling out products, and there are services, and they're not getting the result that you were looking for, did you even have enough wonders or inventors in the early phases, bringing their genius to the table?

Andy Follows: 34:14

I I've been chuckling as quietly as I can here just how marvellous this and some of this really strikes a nerve. But I haven't done the assessment. So I don't know if I'm a wonder but I'm definitely there really irritating leader who wants to go back to the beginning and ask lots of questions at whatever stage your project is to the point that I told my team don't bring me stuff if I don't need to know don't bring it anywhere near me. Because you know what, I'm naturally figured that out. Yeah, you're not gonna you know what I'm gonna do. So I love that this is something that simplifies the complexity. You said, It sounds easy, and it does because it is simplifying a whole load of complexity that's going on underneath the surface. You have a doctorate in organisational design are this whole area. And for you then to look at what Patrick Lencioni has done, and what the table group done with widget and say, oh my goodness, this is so helpful. This really does simplify complexity in a good way. And I can use it and it makes sense. And I can help leadership teams to understand it. And they can know what letters they are, what geniuses they are, I can see how that's really going to help. And if you've got bits missing, then you need to find those parts of the process people who are strong in that. And as you say, you can't Don't keep bringing people in who should be at the beginning of the process, don't bring them in halfway through and then wonder why it's never getting finished. And you keep looping around. So that sounds really, really valuable. And he talked before Margie about, you know, the the leadership team being an orchestra and the leader being really the conductor of the orchestra. I know that's an analogy that you you use. So is it topical? Now coming off that? Is there anything to add with.

Margie Oleson: 35:56

So I would say that when we are clear about who has what role. And so we start with teamwork, the leadership team, and then we move into commitment, which is clarity, and alignment. And when you talk about clarity, I wish that that was not as pervasive as it is, when you talk about oh, you should be doing what the leader is aiming for most issues. When I come into teams, they're not doing that they're actually not aware. So to answer your question, with an example, I once worked with a four person leadership team, who had been working on a national rollout for a year. And when I say working together, I mean, they literally sat together this is when we were still inside the office, they sat together for a year, and they weren't getting traction, they brought me in. And within the first application of some of these conversations, and looking to clarify, do we have clarity and alignment on what you're working on, and who's doing what they had four completely different stories, their teams were working in four completely different ways. They couldn't even tell me in the same sentence, where the transformation was headed and how they were going to get there. They got emotional, they were laughing, they were crying, they could not believe that this wonderful group, that smart people did not tell the same story. But they didn't have a way to find that out. They weren't they weren't testing that they were just operating the way we do, we gotta get to work, we got to do stuff, we got to get our people working, I'm gonna be more successful today. And they've not stepped back, for clarity. And so So how I think of the leader is the leader is the one who owns what you're doing and where you're headed. And then the leadership team, each of the people have their expertise, like if you're in an orchestra, you have the different areas, but then it's not enough to be great at operations. So it's not enough to be great at marketing. It's the combination, and the leader owns what each piece should be working on. Because that's how we make the complexity more simple, because we've got it all covered. And then we're set up to behave together to adjust as we need to go. But the very first thing is everyone is clear. They've got clarity to gather, they have the same view of what the roles are and who should be doing what and they have alignment together on where they should be headed today who should be working on what today that puts them lightyears ahead of where they've been and where most people are when they get that piece pulled together.

Andy Follows: 38:25

It sounds like there's an awful lot of assumptions being made even with their team who were on the face of it. I'm sure you ask them before you started, how cohesive Are you how good a team are you and they thought they were a great team. But there were a whole load of assumptions that were masking what was actually going on. And you talked about really giving the team's clarity at the beginning as part of the process. And then they build trust as they get more clarity. Earlier in the conversation. You mentioned the importance of honesty and having honest conversations. So when do you get to the point? Or how do you get to the point where people are being? Not your word? I'm just going to add the word brutally honest with each other. How do you get to that point,

Margie Oleson: 39:08

we don't talk about it openly, except we do say that we are when here are the outcomes we're going after. And here's what other teams have accomplished. And then we start by insisting on that clarity. So we do a few assessments to help them know themselves and each other. And then we start to work on the clarity for the actual work. Where do you fit in the industry? Where do you fit in the organisation? Where do you fit on the team? And then are you aligned? Do you tell the same story and so we're going through exercises? Do you tell the same story of what you would be working on right now based on being able to roll in the same direction to the leaders goals and priorities? And then we start to practice and the first thing I do is model it. I'm always honest and open. And then we do talk about some assumptions. So there is an assumption not just at work in my family and every People that are made, the assumption is that most people tell fibs most people just a fib a little bit, it's harmless, they're doing it to save you or to save a moment. And that's on one end of the spectrum all the way to outright keeping things and saying things that are incorrect. We start off by where it feels safe, just being a little bit more open and honest. And then it begins a practice. And so I'm modelling it first. And then I'm working with the leader behind the scenes to talk about how they can be transparent, open and honest. And right now the good news for your leadership team is, there are people on the team right now that are already good at this, they already get this problem, they already understand that they're not clear, they already know that people are gossiping, complaining, maybe not being truthful. But they don't know what to do about it, and they're not in charge. So once you I come to work with the leadership team, there are usually a couple people who, right away there, they jump on board, and they're excited to be open and honest and work together as a team for the first time. So it's not literally everything that has to change, we start by building on the things that are already working well. And then we also I'll say one more thing, we use the dance floor balcony metaphor. So the team is doing the work of the organisation, and 95% of the time that's down on the dance floor, they're dancing, and they're doing their marketing thing. They're doing their HR thing, they're managing the financials, and recreating a service and sending out consultants or whatever, building a car. And for 95% of the time as a leadership team. They're doing that work together and separately. And when we are in meetings, or we need to call a session, we take 5% of the time we go up to the balcony, and we look at the dancing, and we watch the dancing, and we begin to trust and to start to talk about our own behaviours. Well, here's what here's what I said last week. But you know what? I didn't do that yet. I'm going to tell you why. There's these three things that are getting in the way we're used to be, maybe we didn't talk about it again. So you didn't realise I never followed through or another fire, we're fighting another fire, we can never get to the new, or the things we said we wanted, because we're so busy fighting fires. So that up in the balcony, gives us a chance to learn to observe our behaviour, observe our dynamics in a neutral way. It's not judgmental. Yeah, it's not it's not negative, it's safe. We're doing it together. Most of what I'm saying and talking is a lot of automatic. What I own is, how does it go after that? And can I shift it, if we have 60 to 100,000 thoughts a day, most of those I'm not leading, they're just popping in. So we can learn to be up on the balcony and observe a little bit about oh, I probably didn't have to say it that way. Or wow, I am really glad that I am on this team, because I'm doing really great in this one piece. And so they get a chance to prep. So we will be in a meeting then later. And we will pause and move to the balcony. If it's a heated moment, if it's going down the same rabbit hole that we've gone down before, we'll even go to the balcony when it's going really well. And they've changed behaviours. And they're being open and brutally honest. And they're talking about the widget sequence. And there's big smiles on their faces, or they're very energetic and kind of getting into each other's metaphysical space. And we'll just pause and say look at you, you are changing your habits, you are changing your behaviours you are on the path to success you've always been hoping for.

Andy Follows: 43:43

So you start at the beginning of the programme, you're introducing this idea that, you know, we don't just grow naturally into leaders, there's a whole load of stuff we have to understand and get good at. And you introduce that idea. And then you start to play with the stuff that comes up over the coming weeks and months. And you've already made it okay, you've made it okay, that there's stuff we're going to have to learn. And we're going to learn through experience and by you know, working with what comes along. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I love that analogy of going up onto the balcony and looking down at the dance floor. So thanks, Margie for sharing that with us. And I guess you know, one of my questions was going to be about we often come across leadership teams where you mentioned it earlier that people have their areas, they're taking care of their areas. And occasionally they they come together as the leadership team, and they tend to protect their area, they tend to feel that that's their team. And I know Patrick Lencioni talks about this and about how your first team is the team that you're part of not the team that you lead, and so does it naturally through the process you're talking about do people naturally shift their allegiance if you like once they've got increased clarity and once they've started to develop some communications and more honesty in their communication do they tend to go gravitate then towards the leadership team and feel less protective over their own area.

Margie Oleson: 45:06

They do. And it's for a variety of reasons. And a variety of things can happen. Number one, they may have been waiting for this their whole lives, and they're ready. Number two, on the other end, they may not be the right person for this, they may be one of the problems. And so during that those first few months, the leadership needs the leader, him or herself needs to be able to have conversations about what happens when you get farther down the road. And you're putting these building blocks in place. And there are some obstacles in the form of a person or a particular aspect of your business. And we know how to go after that and help that. But there may have to be people changes, I will say that many times people are going back to their own teams and rowing in their own direction, out of survival. As an example, I once worked with a team, I was brought in a medical device company, and they had been doing a global transformation. And people were excited to get on the team of these different leaders because this was going to be a global transformation. And they were going to be in the hottest, sexiest project and they were so excited. And six, seven months in and hundreds of 1000s of dollars later, no traction. And people were starting to quietly say, Can I leave this team? Can I go on to a new team I'm and what it was was the word was that there was just a lot of politics. And there were people that were saving their own agendas or focusing on themselves. And that because of that, if I say to you, you have an issue with politics, you might think that and there's nothing we can do. But instead of focusing on politics, once I knew this information and was planning to bring them together, rather than focusing on transparency, rather than focusing on the chaos and confusion, and the fact that people wanted to leave their teams, we didn't even talk about that we started these building blocks, we immediately started to understand each other, do a check in on where they had been so that they each were telling the same story about where they've been, where they're headed, and where they're at now. And within a day and a half of doing just those activities, the actual leadership groups, we had a much bigger group that were there, their leaders were there and a bunch of supporting folks, that leadership group literally moved in and took over and took the reins for their own leadership team for the first time in nine months. And so what looked like political figures, or what look like people who weren't good at their leadership jobs, or there was going to be so much chaos and confusion because it was just natural. No, they pulled it right together, they could build on the clarity and alignment that they now had. And they had started develop trust with each other without us even using the word Trust. And they were able to literally shift nine months of activities in awareness as that happened in a day and a half. And what we do in my programme is we use examples to get people to feel like they can be confident. But the other thing I do that's different is we don't use case studies. We don't do theoretical, all the learning, everything we talk about is the actual work they're doing. So they can get it really quickly, even though it's been years that they have not.

Andy Follows: 48:17

And it feels so relevant, and so worthwhile because they are actually tackling stuff that's on their to do list, if you like you said earlier in the conversation, and I really liked it that at some point you discovered that you would be better placed to be working with teams and observing spotting the issues and actually honestly saying the things that needed to be said. So talking about leaders, what are some of the benefits of bringing in an external third party to help take them on this journey,

Margie Oleson: 48:48

there are a couple of things one is most of it is seems to be a secret, even though it's the worst kept secret ever. It's out in open. But the information for how to do this is not natural, because we were trained by those people who also hadn't learned it naturally, if we were living in community, and we'd been learning from our elders and our ancestors, how to show up and who to be, we would know it naturally we don't what we learned naturally was different than what it's going to take. So if we aren't able to learn it naturally, you're going to have to find a way to learn the knowledge but to add it into your internal database and plant it onto the way your brain replacing a lot of old think about three, four or five decades of learning in one way. And now we're saying actually, you need to do it differently. So and the other thing is, it is much more difficult to do it yourself if you could you already would have. And so what happens is until you get to a point where you've set enough building blocks in place that you are doing less firefighting, and you do have more time to focus on the things that take a little bit that it's either an opportunity or a chance allenge And you need to the investment of time and energy for that, until you get to that point, it's really hard to change for the future. So if you're, if you're starting it, but then you end up in firefighting, you've literally lost that momentum, you've lost the way the brain is learning new habits. And we know that because they've already done that. They've tried it before you need someone who can keep you on this path. And then the other piece is, it's really important to customise it for you. So maybe everybody takes it really quickly to learn the sequence of activities, the widget, the working genius, but maybe you have a stubborn challenge, because you have so many different locations, and there's something about your business that is unique, we're going to need to build activities around that. What I love about these changes that leaders and leadership teams make is all those problems they have in organisations right now they think are not solvable. workforce issues. Five generations in the workplace diversity and inclusion is taking way too darn much on the market. Are we remote? Are we in person? Are we a hybrid, this whole global supply chain all of these issues, they just check the box and say, oh, yeah, that's beyond my ability to do anything about it. It's too big, it's really unfortunate. That's why I'm not succeeding. What you find is when you put these pieces in place, and start to have some wins on these capabilities, you've now freed up time and energy, and also creativity for you and this brain trust of amazing leaders to focus on one of those and focus on another and have onboarding that looks different than what you've been taught and focus on the diversity and inclusion and solve global supply chain issues with the minds at the table, because those minds have not been available, they have been fighting fires or gossiping about you. And so when you really are together, there is a lot of information and a lot of things that you could do you and now you're fast, you can fail fast, you can explore, you can experiment, and one of the first things we do is fix your meetings. And if you're still having low performing meetings, which most organisations are, that's the easiest thing to fix, and the biggest indicator of the other things that are going on that aren't working for you. So we fix the meetings, but it also sets you up to fix some other things. Because you will be rowing in the same direction. And using the knowledge we know about the team.

Andy Follows: 52:24

It sounds like it's perfectly normal, to not be an expert at this don't feel don't beat yourself up for not being a leadership expert, you've never been taught. I mean, some people in super professional organisations, I'm sure they get lots and lots of leadership development. But even so, there's the execution of it the the levels of complexity, the day to day, it's, it's challenging. So first, accept that there's no shame in not being an expert at this not being the best at this right away, acknowledge it's something you need to learn and that your teammates, your leadership team needs to learn, it's gonna take a while to do it, get some help get somebody in who can help keep you honest, can introduce you to the new topics and can keep an eye on you as you try to take them on board. And then you'll find that some of those big topics that seem totally insurmountable, actually, you can tackle them, because you'll have unleashed the talent in the team. And it's you said at the very beginning, when you're talking about your early years of your career, Margie, that you were being you were being hushed, you are being pushed down, you, your contributions weren't appreciated. So you create an environment where all of the talent in the team or the capability can be deployed into solving some of these latest, seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Margie Oleson: 53:46

And some of that is physics. If you know that in a conference room, if you have 12 people in a conference room taking the same math quiz, but they're not talking, they're not looking at each other's work. But on balance, many of those scores will be higher, there's an energetic exchange. So there's an energetic exchange. And then when you're literally talking to each other and sharing each other and looking over each other's work, there is so much that happens, that's exponential. But you don't even know that because you're not getting to that. And the other thing is, you're burnt out. So this is something that people will talk openly about, but they think there's nothing they can do. Everybody's burnt out. Yeah, you're burnt out a couple of them major contributors to burnout. Number one, you're, you're not solving your challenges. You're not succeeding in your goal. So you set a goal and you're not meeting it that can cause burnout, especially over and over and over. You are having challenges and that you're not solving those challenges that can cause burnout. The other thing that causes burnout, let's go back to working genius. So in so there are two geniuses two competencies and to frustrations and it might be you might think, well, people are working too much in their frustrations and that must be really hard. Actually, burnout happens when you hang out and live mostly in your competencies. So in my career, those roles that I was fulfilling, I am really good at a couple of the widget acronyms that don't fit me, but because I'm good at it, they want to hire me for that. And leaders want to keep me there. They don't want me asking questions or discerning because they really need that other thing I do that I'm a genius at. And so burnout happens when I spend too much of my day and my life in those areas that yes, I know how to do it. But that's not where I get energy. And that's not where I have joy. And so when we're in a room, or a virtual room, and we are problem solving one of those big issues, and we recognise the sequence of someone who's asking the questions and who's got some ideas, and how can we think about that and discern whether or not you start to do that everybody gets more excited, because their own genius is eventually going to be a part of it. And they're going to feel the opposite of burnout, which is just excited and motivated and part of the team.

Andy Follows: 55:57

So there's a lot of linkages between everything you're talking about. It's sort of that clarity that you give people, this raising their awareness. So you're helping people to lift the hood, on themselves and on each other and to be able to openly talk about Well, under my hood, this is what I discovered. And these are the things that filled me with joy. These are the things that I'm Yeah, I'm good at but you know, please don't overload me with this stuff because it doesn't energise me. But once we can verbalise this, once we can understand it, be aware of it verbalise it, share it with our colleagues, we can start to structure days and weeks, we can apportion tasks, we can set ourselves up, can't wait to be much more effective. And then that effective team can tackle some of these fresh challenges that are coming along,

Margie Oleson: 56:44

you get some wins under your belt, you do that a few times, and it succeeds. And it's like, fruit that you didn't know existed, and you want a lot more of it, except that now you're going home, and you're feeling so much better about your life. It's weird in the gains, the way that these lives of these leaders needs leadership teams, that the way they're affecting their personal lives is not to be missed. There is a lot of other health issues there are trying to go home and not, you know, take it out on other people, there's just a lot that can benefit when people feel excited and feel like they're a part of a team and that they're actually succeeding.

Andy Follows: 57:19

It all sounds wonderful and very aligned with my mission and our mission, which is to enable fulfilling performance, which is all about people performing at their highest growing every day being able to deliver, but also going home to be so fulfilled from what they've been doing that they can be great partners, parents and human beings. So it sounds like that's the kind of work you're doing. I love it. I'm so grateful that you're out there doing it, Margie Is there anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to have the opportunity just to share before I start talking about how people can contact you, and if they want to work with you, and so on.

Margie Oleson: 57:56

The one thing I would say is I was very excited in my doctoral programme, when I learned about the concept of whole organisations, it's a system, it's a system of systems. And when I learned systems theory, and how really, I can make a change in my part of the system, but unless we do a lot to change more the system, the system will stay the same. And so I can do my little team for a while, but eventually the system it becomes it and so whole organisations are really weird the development needs to happen. And to quote Wickman from traction, As goes the leadership team, so goes the company. And so which is why I start at the top or start at the top of a major division because when you have that leader, and that leadership team, dealing like they can be successful together, it naturally cascades throughout the organisation and each organisational member, let's say you have an organisation of 5000 or 50,000. Each one of those members represents four or five people out in the world, whether it's their people that live at home with them, or it's people that they pay for day to day and so anything you do with this entire organisation also benefits the communities. And so it is the it's the mission of leaders to make the world a better place and earn profit, you know, serve customers provide services, and they can do that better when they work together as a leadership team.

Andy Follows: 59:14

It's wonderful. It's very wholesome, circular, and building sustainability into those organisations to the pit to the teams and to the individuals involved. So if people want to work with you, how do they reach out to you we'll put some details in the in the show notes to this episode, but you tell us how you'd like people to get in touch with you Margie

Margie Oleson: 59:37

Oleson consulting is my website and then I'm on LinkedIn Margie.Oleson Oleson is O L E S O N. Dash consulting and you'll find case study you'll find information for videos will help you fix your meetings right away and there's articles and videos on how to do all of that on on my website

Andy Follows: 59:55

Marvellous. Thank you very much and thank you for joining me this morning. It's been an absolute pleasure to meet you and to discuss the work that you're doing. I wish you all the very best in it and I look forward to staying connected.

Margie Oleson: 1:00:06

Thank you so glad to be here

Andy Follows: 1:00:13

You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me, Andy Follows. I really enjoyed this conversation with Margie. I hope that it stimulated some thoughts about leadership and the clarity, honesty and trust within your own leadership team, or other teams that you lead or are a member of. If you'd like to reach out to Margie, you'll find our contact details in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoy listening to our episodes, please could you do me a huge favour and share them with someone who lead parent or mentor or a friend do you think will also appreciate them? Thank you to Margie for joining me thank you to our sponsors for this episode, ASKE Consulting and Aquilae. And thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team without whom we wouldn't be able to share I guests' life and career stories. And above all, thank you to you for listening.

Osman Abdelmoneim: 1:00:54

No matter how hard you try, no matter how hard working you are, you're never going to be able to do it on your own. It's just not possible.

Paul Harris: 1:01:01

You know, at the end of the day, you're steering your own destiny. So if it's not happening for you, and you're seeing what you want out there, then go out there and connect.

Sherene Redelinghuys: 1:01:09

Don't rely on others. You have to do it yourself. You have to take control.

Rupert Pontin: 1:01:15

If you've got an idea if you've got a thought about something that might be successful. If you've got a passion to do something yourself, you just haven't quite got do it.

Tom Stepanchak: 1:01:25

Take a risk. Take a chance stick your neck out what's the worst that can happen? You fall down okay, you pick yourself up and try again.