Build Stronger & More Resilient Teams: Embrace Diversity, Feedback, and Psychological Safety

“Feedback isn’t about the past—it’s about building a better future together.” – Vindou Duc

In this episode of It’s an Inside Job, I sit down with Vindou Duc, a seasoned leader with over 25 years of global experience in marketing, human resources, and business transformation. Together, we dive into the nuances of team dynamics, the importance of building trust, and the critical role of communication in creating resilient, cohesive teams.

Vindou shares practical strategies for overcoming self-doubt as a leader, fostering psychological safety, and developing a culture of open dialogue and feedback. Whether you're stepping into a new leadership role or managing a virtual team across time zones, this episode is filled with actionable insights to help you lead with confidence and adaptability.

Key Topics Discussed:
The Foundations of Team Dynamics:

• Understanding how cultural diversity, individual values, and communication styles influence team cohesion.
• The importance of creating a "team contract" to define shared values, behaviors, and expectations.

Overcoming Self-Doubt as a Leader:

• Strategies for new leaders to build confidence and establish trust with their teams.
• Recognizing and addressing the root causes of closed or reserved behaviors among team members.

Feedback and Feed-Forward Culture:

• Shifting from traditional feedback to a "feed-forward" approach that emphasizes future growth and innovation.
• Embedding a culture of reciprocal feedback to foster transparency and continuous improvement.

Navigating Virtual Team Challenges:

• Tips for managing team cohesion across time zones and remote settings, such as shorter, structured meetings and regular one-on-ones.
• Establishing norms to respect cultural differences and time zone constraints.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Create a Team Contract:
   Define team norms and expectations collectively to ensure alignment and mutual understanding.
2. Foster Psychological Safety:
   Build trust by encouraging open dialogue and creating a space where team members feel safe to express themselves.
3. Adopt a Feedback Culture:
   Regularly seek feedback from team members to refine your leadership and address potential issues early.
4. Respect Diversity:
   Recognize and adapt to different cultural and communication styles to avoid misunderstandings.
5. Stay Attentive and Present:
   Practice active listening and remain aware of subtle cues that reveal underlying issues or needs.

If you found this episode valuable, subscribe to It’s an Inside Job for more insights on building resilient teams and fostering collaboration. Share this episode with a colleague or friend who could benefit from these strategies.

Chapters

• 0:16 Introduction to Resilience and Leadership
• 2:13 Meet Vindu Duke: A Leader's Journey
• 7:12 Team Dynamics: The Heart of Leadership
• 11:07 Building Foundations for New Leaders
• 20:33 The Importance of Communication in Teams
• 27:09 Recap: Insights from Vindu on Team Dynamics
• 29:17 Understanding Cultural Nuances in Communication
• 33:43 Overcoming Self-Doubt as a New Leader
• 38:45 Establishing a Feedback Culture
• 43:31 The Nuances of Listening and Understanding
• 50:09 Navigating Virtual Team Challenges
• 53:49 Closing Thoughts on Team Resilience
• 57:28 Conclusion and Next Steps

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:06] Welcome to It's an Inside Job, the podcast where we equip you with actual skills to build resilience, enhance communication, foster well-being,

[0:14] and lead and coach with impact. I'm your host, Jason Liem, and every Monday we bring you expert insights and real-world stories to help you thrive and succeed. And with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:35] Good morning good afternoon good evening i'm thankful that you could show up for another monday episode well if you are a leader if you are an hr person if you are responsible for people well i think this episode is right down your alley so today's episode we feature an insightful conversation with Vindu Duke. She is a seasoned leader with over 25 years of global experience, spanning marketing, human resources, and business transformation.

[1:04] Now, Vindou's passion lies in placing the human factor at the heart of organizations, helping leaders bring their authentic selves to their teams while creating safe, empowering space for growth. In other words, creating an environment for resilience. Now, in this episode, Vindu is going to share some practical strategies and key lessons that include how to navigate self-doubt as a leader, especially if you're new to the role or you're adjusting to cultural differences. The critical role of team dynamics and how understanding individual values can strengthen collaboration and cooperation. Also, why embedding active listening and feedback into your team's culture can transform communication and trust. And I think a key thing for a lot of people is ways to tackle the unique challenges of managing virtual teams and try to maintain cohesion across time zones. And I think that is a challenge for a lot of remote teams, a lot of remote leaders. So whether you're looking to strengthen your leadership skills or enhance improved workplace communication, the collaboration, well, I think this episode is for

[2:11] you because it's packed with actionable insights. So without further ado, let's slip into the stream of the first half of my Thank you.

[2:18] Music.

[2:34] And thank you for having me. I was wondering if we could kick off by you introducing briefly who you are and what you'd like to focus on today. The introduction is always an interesting one for me. I'm one of those people who's got a very broad and diverse background, so originally Indian slash Pakistani. I'm born in Africa and today I live in Switzerland for the last 30 plus years. So home is where my family is it's not a country where do i what do i do actually having done my.

[3:09] Career in market started my career in marketing and then in people and culture as we call it today i'm really one of those people who's very passionate about people who believes that people is at the core of the business and it's all about leadership because leadership is not only at the senior levels also throughout the organization so having my own consultancy i really work with growing people that i know will impact the business it's not often we talk of the business and say people who follow the business but actually it's a two-way stream for me one doesn't go without the other but we have to look at it from the two angles i agree it's vicarious i mean people need the business to grow and the business needs the people so it is a vicarious relationship When it comes, you know, you've spoken a lot on team dynamics, the importance of communication and collaboration and such. Perhaps we could start there talking about sort of the importance, the connections between people that make up an organization, a firm, a company. I mean, what is your take on team dynamics?

[4:17] So my take on team dynamics, the reason I'm focusing on team dynamics is because with my, well, not only with my own experience, but observing what's been going on through the feedback of my network and my clients, I've observed that we focus a lot on the individual and we forget that actually teams, we all work in teams, whatever kind of teams, you work in teams, I work in teams. We always are working in teams. And the importance of the team dynamics and the team understands each other is underestimated. So what we call team dynamics, we can call it team cohesion to say, are we talking the same language? We may be speaking English, but are we meaning the same thing using the same words? I'm not always convinced. And so it's really creating that gel, that environment where the team, the team members, actually, to be more specific, are really being able to bring the authenticity and be comfortable. So forget even the word authenticity, it's just about being themselves, being in a safe space to be themselves and to really be able to speak up.

[5:24] I think authenticity is a definite value that all teams need to bring on board. But it's sometimes quite hard, especially when you have diverse cultures. They could be business cultures, they could be departmental cultures, they could be culturals from sort of national cultures and such. And when you bring a group of people together, you know, a lot of us can speak a good game about, we use the vernacular of, you know, psychological safety and vulnerability and equanimity or what have you.

[6:00] Inclusion is also a very common and overused word. I mean, the resilience of any company, it comes down to how well a team or a group of people can communicate with each other, meaning both the sort of the social aspect of it, but it's also the hard, difficult conversations. And time and time again, I always hear, you know, people have the best intentions, but sometimes when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, when it is in an emotional, intense meeting and it's in the here and now, a lot of that can go to the wayside. And what happens in a lot of dynamics is that if we get into an argument, I sometimes, in sort of a postscript after I'm working with clients, a lot of the times the other person thinks they have bad intentions. They're out against me, right? They may not say this per se, but that's what's going on in the background, the narrative in their head. How do we get beyond that? If we had to actually talk the nuts and bolts and the reality of team dynamics

[7:06] and communication and authenticity from your experience, how do we get past this? And so it's not just a theoretical exercise.

[7:16] I love your question. It's team dynamics. Team dynamics is like working in an organization is like getting in a marriage. Before you get married, you get to know each other. You get to spend time together. You get to know each other's values. You get to know what you like, you don't like, what clicks, what doesn't click. But when you're coming to an organization and joining a team, how many times do you see that happening? How many times do you see the teams taking time to get to know each other? Now, don't get me wrong. They do team building. Team building is a part of the process, but it does not always hit the core.

[7:58] And for me, that's where I have seen efficient teams being successful when they're taking the time to build the foundations. I'm saying, okay, let's understand each other. Who are we? What's our likes and dislikes and what is our code of contact so meaning the company will have the values you mentioned culture the company will have their own culture i call culture in a company a spider web because you have the core culture but then as the company expands the culture becomes more and more diluted and get different versions of that culture and the team will have its own culture because you said very well we are from different backgrounds multicultural multi-generational and so on is how do you build that culture together how do you build those ways of working and those principles those norms together and that's what successful teams take the time to, sort of to build that to identify it and to build on it and they create that space by doing so because they are recognizing and respecting the individuality of each team member and building what I call a nice food salad that becomes homogeneous.

[9:14] They then have those foundations to be able to work on different projects, but also to be able to manage stress. Because there's a very good saying in French that says, try to hide your natural side on the stress that comes back very quickly. Stress is often seen as negative, but actually stress can be very positive if it's taken with positive intent. And that links back to your other point about people always think that people are coming from a negative angle. And that's, again, the fact that sometimes it's just cultural misunderstanding. Very well said. Very well said. So, you know, if we take, let's say, one of the listeners here, he or she is just being hired into a new company and they are taking over a team. It may be a global team. It may be a local team. Or it could be another listener who is being, she or he is being technically expert at what they are doing. And they're moving from a technical role to a managerial role. And so they're thinking, okay, how do I coalesce this team? How do I create cohesion? You were speaking earlier about building the foundation, settling down to certain norms.

[10:31] If we got a little more into the the weeds how does that look i mean if if we're going to build the foundation you know you have 25 years in global roles across multiple industries from your experience what does that look like building the foundation i mean what is that brick by brick i mean how can one of our listeners think okay you know this vindu woman she's she's she's got a lot of professional experience. She's making a lot of sense. But how do I do it? How do we move from the headlines down into the article here? So...

[11:07] I would say there are multiple ways. The one way that I've seen, which is very efficient, is the new leader. Whatever situation, context, this person is coming to the organ, into this position, the new leader takes time out. After having met each and every team member individually, it takes time out to meet them as a group and build the foundations by understanding each other's expectations. So just asking the team members, what are you expecting of me as a leader?

[11:43] Why? And also, what do me as a leader expect of you? We take this often for granted that it's obvious. I'm your leader. You know what I expect of you. Well, not really, because we know what we think. We already think that we know what the company expects of us. We think we know what the organization expects of us as a job. And now there's a third assumption coming in saying we think we know we think we know what our leader expects sometimes it's the untold messages which is the most how do you say problematic because all expectations and assumptions actually not expectations assumptions that we think we know but has never been said and so it's taking that time out it's half a day Just taking that half a day out and saying, let's work as a team and lay down the expectations of each other. I'll do back the analogy to a marriage. Why am I saying that? You spend more time at work and with your team members and with your own spouse and family. You see, when someone looks at the hours, you will be spending four to five hours per day in the week with your family.

[12:56] So on average, 8, 10, 12 hours, I would say 10 to 12 hours with the team members per day in the week. I'm not talking about the weekends. So I think when you're spending just four or five hours with your spouse or your partner, you have taken time before to say these are the expectations of each other. That's the same exercise to be done with your team, to say, me as a leader, this is what I expect. Now, explain to me what you expect of me. Why can this dialogue not happen? Because then that's the moment where you sort of at least remove a lot of misconceptions, misunderstandings. I think that's a very wise thing, what you're saying. I'm very astute. So what I'm hearing, if a manager, he or she's just taken the role, they've got a new team, it's a diverse team, what have you.

[13:49] What I hear you're saying is initially that manager, he or she should sit down with each of the individuals and talk to them, get to know them for whatever, two, three hours, half a day. And then also on top of that, sometime within the first couple of weeks or three weeks, it's to sit down as a group and to talk about expectations, what expectations I have of you and why I have those expectations so they understand the reasons. But at the same time, maybe to begin with, it's like, okay, Vindu, as your manager, what do you expect of me and why do you expect that of me or what would you like from me, right? And so we move from assumptions or sort of mind reading into concrete, factual expectations. And those expectations may evolve more likely. They will evolve as the relationship strengthens and progresses. Is that what I understand?

[14:42] Yeah. Not only as the relationship progresses, but also as the job becomes more complex, those expectations will evolve. So it's something to be done on a regular basis. Yes. Yes. spot on the other element is also to take time to define the ways of working the ways of communicating you mentioned the fact that it's a diverse team and diversity i just want to clarify for me diversity is not only about gender it's about how say nationalities is about backgrounds we can be from the same nationality but coming from different education backgrounds and so on, the fact that you already had two people in the room there's diversity.

[15:20] Forget all the other criteria, it's just two people in a room is a diversity. And when you're talking of diversity, if I expand it to culture, taking time to define what do we mean by some key words. So if we define another exercise that I do a lot, it's what I call the team culture, the team contract. And some of the people call it the team culture norms. And so there are different names, but I call it a team contract. And it's an engagement contract to say these are the values by which we want to work together as a team, values and behaviors. So, for example, when you have someone from the south of Europe who's very bubbly, very passionate, who speaks with their hands and who may have a loud voice.

[16:05] For someone coming from the north or even from Switzerland, where I'm based and I've been living for 30 plus years. Because someone who's loud, they can think they are shouting and you're angry and saying, well, no, that's just my way of communicating and clarifying those sources of potential misunderstanding and saying it's OK for the person who's coming from Spain or from south of France to be loud and bubbly. That's fine, because I understand it's a culture, you know. And so it's addressing those elements that can avoid a lot of other issues. I'll give you a very concrete example. Two years ago, I found myself in a situation where a professional wanted to put a complaint against a manager because a manager at the end of a meeting had just said, why am I in this meeting? I don't understand my role in this meeting. How useful is it for me?

[17:02] And the professional who was facilitating the meeting felt insulted and felt offended and came to me said can i put a complaint and i said okay can i just understand what happened and explain to me the background and then the person explained to me and gave me the context i asked i was suspecting without asking names i was suspecting who was the person the the leader who had reacted I said, is this person French? She said, so the lady said, yes, he's French. I said, okay. I said, that may not have been offending. I said, before you do anything official, maybe just have a discussion with him, with the leader, and try to understand why they reacted that way. What was the source? I said, it could be just cultural. It could just be a cultural misunderstanding that it was a way that being French, it's normal for them to express the...

[17:58] Frustration doesn't mean that they're being offending. And the person being English, they are not used to that expression, so they took it as a negative. And that clarified the situation. We got them to speak. It clarified. It led that we did a multicultural sensitivity workshop just to understand some of the most common biases that we may have on cultures and to clarify that. So I'm a bit diverted, but just to tell you, When you're talking of team dynamics, there's so many factors and elements to look into. And when you speak, it comes back to communication, but not taking it for granted that even though we speak English, we're using one word with the same meaning and understanding in mind, or even for the tone of the voice.

[18:46] Again, I think that's a very salient point. I remember I was working between a Japanese crew and Americans who own this vessel, and the Japanese were renting the vessel from the Americans. And, you know, I'm Canadian myself, so we have the same sort of tendencies as Americans where we can be quite direct and we speak our point and table all issues. And I remember sitting there in the room as the consultant, per se, trying to facilitate this understanding. The Japanese, they were much more of a collective, right? It had to go up the hierarchy. They couldn't commit to anything. And again, there's nothing right or wrong with the North Americans nor the Japanese. But it took time to build this. And it wasn't a one-off. It came down to several. It was an iterative process, I guess, maybe it was an evolution of communication to find these foundations or norms or what did you call it? A team contract between these two. So.

[19:53] The reason I wanted to share that example with you is that, you know, a lot of managers may think, okay, as Vindu, she's got 25 years of experience across the globe. And so what she's saying is, I need to sit down with each of my people, understand their expectations, and then move it to a group setting and such. But what I hear you're saying, and from my own anecdotal experience, that this is not a one-off. No. This is a conversation that needs, not needs, we will want to have this conversation quite often. It's not so much how we do the business, but how we communicate as a team.

[20:28] Is this what I understand? I was wondering if you can riff on that or expand on that for me, Mindu. Yes, part of, Jason, your understanding is correct. I mean, to say, when you think of a business, doing business is pretty simple. We all want to win.

[20:44] I always go with the approach everybody wants to win is how do you find the win-win but then the question is how you define the win-win for each side of the parties of the stakeholders, and so it's already sitting down around the table and saying okay what do we mean what is our intention what is our drivers and so it comes back when you're talking of team dynamics it comes back to the same point it's an ongoing conversation and having that safe zone or that confidence or that capacity of taking a step back, saying, okay, before I react to what a person is saying, let me try to understand from where they are coming. So it's also about the element of showing empathy, but maybe not without using the word empathy, is about using the word of curiosity, understanding. Curiosity and understanding of saying, who am I talking to? What's their drivers? What's their motivations? And why are they reacting like that? You know? Your spot is an ongoing conversation. We tend to sometimes overreact and you have a fantastic post.

[21:59] How to say, post on that on the overreaction rumination rumination and so on yeah it's exactly that is we we try we tend to overreact and very quickly because we are so much stressed by time we always want to go fast fast fast but reality we just need to slow down it's okay step back what's going on, yeah and i i think what you're saying before you know when you're talking about sort of so let's just for the northern european and a southern european where the southern european may be much more vocal much more you know using much more mannerism such where the northern european may be more stoic or more quiet in the way and there's nothing wrong with either it's just different ways of cultural communication so but what i hear is that.

[22:48] Maybe, again, this is from my own experience, where they may have a conflict, if we can just say Northern and Southern Europeans, and they're on the same team, they're having some conflict, and it comes down to the example you brought up. What I find a lot of the times is that sometimes in that conflict, it's probably best just to kind of walk away if we have that, but it's to return to it maybe a week later when it's become a, what I call a case study where the emotional baggage or the intensity has lowered down and we are much more in a buoyant or mindset. And it's like okay jason and vindu what actually happened how can you know what maybe not ask why but what is the reason jason you acted the way you did what is the cultural norms is this is this also a very good technique to kind of use from your experience it's a very good technique because it shows curiosity and and um understanding and trust interest understanding and curiosity having said that you have to be careful you have to be cautious how you position it so that the person doesn't feel that they're being pinpointed to and they're being victimized not victimized but feel as if they're being guilty you know so people.

[24:09] It goes back again to personality, culture education, people don't always like to sort of be reminded of something that went wrong, and they try to sort of avoid it and what i call play the ostrich you know we dug we dug the head in the sand and we forget it and we hope that it goes over the head and we just become bigger so i love the approach you're suggesting of saying we should address the problem because like this we can learn from it and move forward the ratio is a growth mindset and i would say mind shift also and so forth that's not always an easy one and goes back to creating that environment where people feel comfortable saying yes there was a mess up yes there was a misunderstanding and this is the reason and it's fine we are i always say yeah the difference between robots and humans is that humans make mistakes but they learn from it robots are so perfect that it for me becomes almost boring because there's nothing to learn from you know but i said that's the beauty of being humans is that we keep on learning and we keep on progressing and we impact each other.

[25:13] I think circling back to what you're talking at the sort of the trailhead of this conversation about building the foundation, the team norms or the team contract.

[25:21] You know, this just shows how sometimes nuanced these standards may be from team team, where it's like, guys, we come from a bunch of different cultures. And sometimes we're going to get into conflict. And one of the things I'd like to standard establish as a standard for us as a team norm is that a week later or a few days later after we've had a conflict or a blowout of something.

[25:46] That we try to understand the drivers behind why Jason acted or Jane or John or Janika or whoever acted this way. So we can understand because i think if that's why i think it's so fascinating because these team norms could be so nuanced they could be so bespoke depending upon the team the industry the department yes and it's it's having these conversations and it sounds like from your experience that this evolution may may find much more even much more refined or bespoke or tailored ways of creating these norms it doesn't have to be a dozen or 20 of these standards they may only me a handful like band of the hand five fingers five rules that we may come back exactly and yes put on jason and say think of it also as ai is coming in uh i mean it becomes even more and more important to have the soft that what we call a soft skills elements really focused on that's what we've been looking at and so having those team norms becomes even more crucial i have the word crucial coming because AI can be, people are scared of AI. Reality is it's a partnership.

[26:55] But if you don't have those team norms set to secure the team members, to make them feel confident and safe, it creates other frustrations and other

[27:07] tensions in other parts of the business. So it's really, to your point, it's important to have those open conversations to understand each other.

[27:16] Music.

[27:35] In the first half of the conversation, Vindu highlighted how team dynamics are often underestimated, even though they are fundamental to an organization's success. She emphasized the importance of understanding each team's members' values, preferences, and dislikes by creating a safe space for team members to speak openly and authentically, while teams can unlock better communication, collaboration, and cooperation. We also explored how effective communication starts with clarity. Vindu shared that new leaders should take time early in their tenure to clarify assumptions and expectations. Now, what's important to underscore that this is not a one-time deal, one-time process. It's an iterative process because there should be an ongoing effort as teams and challenges evolve. You know, for leaders and managers, the key is to ensure everyone understands their role and has the space to voice their concerns and needs. And on the topic of addressing cultural misunderstandings, you know, we discussed the value of approaching these situations with curiosity and openness and understanding that everyone around that table has positive intent. You know, whether it's working through direct conversations or multicultural sensitivity workshops, leaders can help their teams navigate these nuances with greater understanding and more empathy.

[28:55] And finally, we talked about how trust and psychological safety create the conditions for a thriving, resilient team. Vindu suggested that leaders need to remain present and attentive, picking up on the subtle signals that may indicate deeper issues.

[29:11] Trust is built through consistent, open communication and a willingness to listen without judgment. So with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[29:20] Music.

[29:37] And it's not even a question. We spoke about cultures. I raised the point about the North and the South. But it can be as simple as extroverts and introverts in the same team. Same team, extroverts and introverts. Introverts will not speak up, will keep quiet, will close up. They need time to reflect. Some they don't agree. They just need time to reflect and process things. Extroverts are very quick and they move and they do this and they do that. And it can create frustrations. I would not say misunderstandings, I say it can create frustrations. You know, just to challenge you, so a new manager, here she comes in, they've got a team. And a major thing here is the ability to establish trust. But above and beyond the basic human respect that we should have for each other in the professional environment, Vindu, my new manager, I'm thinking, okay, I don't really know this woman. I've heard a lot of good things about her, but I really don't know what she's like. I will tap the brakes. I will give you the respect as my leader, as my boss.

[30:42] But if someone's coming into that, they said, okay, I have trust and creativity. But what happens if these new employees that are reporting me, these new direct reports I have, they just don't open up? Or some of them do, but some of these other people, they're just so crazy. Tight-lipped, they're so closed, they seem so stoic, I can't even read their body language or their facial features. What is your recommendation to help those managers who really want to establish this trust, who wants to establish this authentic psychological safety, but that's what they're confronted with? The first question I have is to understand from which context are these employees coming from? What was the history? What happened in the past for them to close up like that? What are the rumors they have heard? They may have heard positive things from who? What have they heard from other people? It's trying to understand what has influenced that behavior. Naturally, human beings will not be closed up. Naturally, human beings are always welcoming. If they close up, that means that something has influenced something somewhere. And it's trying to understand what has been that influence. So it's going back to the root cause. I mean, you said they close up, they're tight-lipped, the body doesn't show anything.

[32:03] My advice to the managers is to say, keep your eyes open because at one point, somewhere, somehow, something will crack off and you'll see, you'll have a signal. But it's being attentive to that signal. So it's being very present in the moment when you're in the meetings. One of the downfalls, and I've had it as a manager, so I raise my hand and say I've had it, is that we don't, so the difference is we hear what people say, but we are not listening because we are already thinking of the answer to the potential question that they're going to ask us. And if we are just in the present moment and we are not trying to anticipate what we should answer, we get so much more information because the answer is in the question.

[32:48] 95% of the time or 90% of the time. So it's my advice to these new managers saying if you have team members who are closed up, tight-lipped or reuse your expression, I don't understand what happened before. What generated such a reaction? Something must have generated it. What is it? What's the root cause? And then the answer is there. I think that's, again, a very salient point. And at the same time, that person who's curious and who has the patience to wait to see that something eventually will reveal itself to get into it. Because to ask a direct or maybe even an indirect question may not be appropriate at that point. Time or temporal distance might have to have to transpire but but you know there are going to be and i think this is many many managers both male and female when they feel that someone's kind of.

[33:43] Stoic or tight-lipped or what have you what happens is all of a sudden self-doubt, that leader okay it must be something about me you know always we spin these sort of negativity bias it's about self-doubt and so what you're talking about i hear is from someone who is comfortable in their skin who has the confidence to based on experience but for those a new leader regardless of age he or she's coming in and they're trying to uh employ and and to attribute all the skills that you've talked about but they're thinking no it's got to be me uh it's something about me it's a self-doubt how does someone find the self-leadership how does someone find a certainty and confidence to kind of try to override those self-doubts which which are usually based on nothing actually yeah so there's so there's no one answer fits all i would say here that it's more question of i'll also go back to understanding so i hear you about the self-doubt because it's true if you have tried multiple things and the person is still showing it's not showing any signs of opening up and being warm and welcoming or whatsoever, then, Yes, automatically you get self-doubt, you get self-questionings and all.

[35:03] The simplest thing is just to go up to that person and say, okay, have I done something? Is there something I need to know? Is there something I need to understand? Because it could be a question of communication that they may have said, I don't know, hello, and the person is not used to it. Oh, no, I'll give you a very concrete example. A couple of years ago, or not, yeah, more than a couple of years ago, I was facilitating a cultural workshop and multicultural workshop in, yeah, I would say on the German part of Switzerland. And happened to be that you had Americans and Swiss people in the room. And the Americans were saying, the Swiss never say good morning.

[35:43] And the Swiss people reacted. They said, oh. And they were all working together. And one of the Swiss people, the lady was, she was quite senior, senior in age and senior in position. She reacted. She says, no, no, no, let's get things clear. We tell you good morning in the lift. You don't answer. So now we said, OK, Americans don't know how to say good morning, so we don't say good morning. She says, no, no, we say good morning, but you don't answer. The Americans were so shocked that then the person, he explained that actually in New York, people are not used to speaking in public places because of whatever context. And that's the reason they don't answer good morning in the lift.

[36:26] It was that simple of an issue that created quite a conversation during that workshop. So to the point, I'm coming back to your point, is thinking that I'm going to use the word courage for the new manager to step up and to step out and say, go and understand what's going on, what's going on. And yes, the self-doubt is okay. It's going to happen. It happens with everybody. But if you see that self-doubt starting, well, don't let it go too deep. Take that step back as a manager and speak to the person concerned directly and say, what's going on without saying have i done something to offend because you still have a position of a manager but say okay what's going on something is going on because i'm not you're not connecting what's going on what am i missing coming back again to building norms which can be very bespoke and very specific to departments. One of the things that I've always found that new managers, regardless of age, can establish with their team is creating a feedback culture. Now, I'd say 90% of the managers I work with out there, and I ask them how often, above and beyond a performance appraisal, do you ask for feedback from your people?

[37:49] A lot of them, it's like crickets. There's nothing. They don't hear anything. They haven't even thought about it, right? It's always, I'm the manager. I have to give them feedback so they improve. I'm here to support them. Well, I think one of the most important things is the ability to have a feedback culture that goes both ways. So it's not a monologue. It's a dialogue. And I've always found if you can establish that from the get-go. When you were talking about setting expectations, not assumptions of what they expected, but you have a hard conversation about what those expectations are and why. Well, part of it for that team culture might be, guys, every third month or every second month or every what have you, every so many one-to-ones, I want to hear what I can do to improve. And so a lot of the times there's six questions I kind of encourage.

[38:42] Now they're just general generic questions, but they're based on three sets. One could be, what am I doing well? And then the second one would, what can I do to either continue or improve what I'm doing? Or, you know, the second one is, what could I do better?

[38:57] And the second question to that follow up with, okay, what can I either change or eliminate to make those improvements? And the third set of questions is, what can I do more of, or what can I do less of to help you? And what I've always found is not just to drop that on in a one-to-one. Give them a few days to process and just lay on the expectation. Guys, I'm here to help you. Please, I'd like to have an answer for each one of these because I'm not far from a perfect manager. And by doing this, the first couple of times is a little awkward, especially if it's new direct reports to the manager. They don't know how they're going to react there's this trust issue again right sometimes exactly and but over time it becomes embedded in the culture and i've found time and time regardless of organizations it is one of the.

[39:51] The strengths of that team culture when they can embed such practices into their whatever monthly or weekly meetings i love what you're saying about the feedback i want to i want to, expand on it by talking feed forward the problem is one of the reasons people are feeling very uncomfortable to speak about feedback is you are going back in the past and you're sort of pinpointing to the person this is what you did wrong this is what you did blah blah blah, This is when you're going feed forward, it goes exactly in line with the questions, with the six questions you have, is you're saying, how can I build a future in a better way? How can I improve? How can I progress? How can we as a team progress? What can we do differently to support and grow and innovate? So the beauty of the whole concept of feed forward is saying, is how do we learn from the past so that today we prepare the future?

[40:48] And that's so spot on. and to your point people take feedback well two things that two approaches one people take feedback for granted although what do you mean by that that means that they they take it for granted they say well if it doesn't go well because it's got such a negative connotation okay i would say they take it when i say they take it for granted they say if it's not going to go well that people will tell us if everything goes right there's no there's no comment so Everything's okay So that's what I mean By taking it for granted So they don't give it That same importance That you would give to.

[41:24] An exchange, a conversation, or dismantling a misunderstanding. That's one thing. The other thing, and I said it, is that feedback has got that negative connotation, and people link feedback to an HR process when actually it's a business process. So there's also that negative element in it. So unfortunately, it's been almost overused, but not properly, that the value of it has not always been understood or well communicated and that's the question of feedback and that's why since a couple of years i would say since five six years we hear the concept of feed forward saying okay we can't change the past but we can improve the future and we can do it by starting now so it's how do you build on the future today on the future for the future you know and maybe that's what needs to be operationally defined again specific to each team but operationally defined whatever term we want to use you know feedback feed forward looping what have you but what does that term mean for us we're giving just to use the overused term just for argument's sake feedback what how do we operationally define that what is that going to mean for us right is it now i think that that's a very important point so when you're establishing expectations maybe it's to operationally define the terms so it doesn't get lost in translation. Is that what I hear? Yes, exactly.

[42:50] It's exactly that. I mean, to say I did a similar exercise a couple of weeks ago with the team, they all spoke French, and we did the exercise of defining, the word listening and hearing. And it was so funny, I had three different definitions for two words for the same language. And then I just asked the origins, and I had five different francophone origins. I said, it's interesting. And it went to the point that they went to the dictionaries to really define what it meant. I said, no, for this team, what does it mean? I don't want to know the dictionary definition.

[43:28] It's for this team. You have to come to an agreement in this team. And it's okay that's opposite to the dictionary i have no problem with that it's yours yeah it's not the team it's not the dictionary it's not the encyclopedia it's yours but it was a very interesting conversation so yes to your point it's redefining the words and what do we mean by the words so talking about those five different francophones or what have you what did they say listening was for them what did they what was the commonality agreement that they came to if you can recall so for them listening means okay the difference between hearing and listening and apologies if I have the confusion in English for them was that hearing was so hearing would be that means hearing you're hearing the words.

[44:19] Listening you are integrating the words and you're really how do you say.

[44:27] Dissecting them That means it's not only about hearing what you said, it's about understanding. There you go. That's what I was looking for. Understanding what has been said. And that's a different step.

[44:41] This goes back to what I was saying before, saying often we are listening to each other, but the brains are already thinking of what the answer is going to be.

[44:50] Yeah, and I'd like to address that because that's something I learned in my clinical psychology, cognitive science days when we were, you know, going into working with trauma and such. And one of the things, it's just that automatically the brain will come up with some sort of rebuttal or the next question or what I want to say. And truly, we don't listen. And so there was a technique we learned, and then it's just integrated into what I do now automatically, is echoing. And basically what that has been doing is that if you said something to me that listening is this, I would actually echo those same words in my brain. Because since the brain can only focus on one thing at a time, I'm actually hearing the words on repeat. You say it, but then I'm also repeating those words in my head. So there's a deeper sense of understanding or comprehension. And if, for example, if you say something and I'll say, oh, can you just rewind? What do you specifically mean by that? Or I might paraphrase. So what I hear you're saying and do is this, this, this. And you'll say, yes. Okay. We got an understanding or no, no, no. What I meant to say was this. So I just wanted to echoing for me was always a way for me to stay present and grounded. So I'm truly, as you're saying, listening. And I've always learned the questioning was always valuable, but it's the quality of those questions because.

[46:14] Sometimes, unintentionally, we may ask questions such as why, like asking a person to justify when we actually mean, can you explain? What is the reason? Or we'll ask loaded questions, that kind of trying to force the other person to see our opinion. What I've always found listening is I use echoing, but for questioning, I use something called TED. And TED was tell, explain, describe. So I might say to you, Vindu, I said, can you explain a little more about your thinking behind that? Could you elaborate or describe? Because they were very neutral ways for me to stay, to ask good questions, to understand their drivers and their motivations. But using echoing allowed me to stay present and really try to comprehend, to be cognizant of what they were saying.

[46:59] Yeah, exactly. To your point about cognizant and comprehending what they're saying and how they're communicating is really key. And having these techniques like that, you mentioned echoing for me, would be paraphrasing, which are similar, or how to say partner systems and techniques, complementary, are very important techniques in our communication. And actually, one thing I tell to my teams when I'm coaching them and working with them, I say, you know, paraphrasing allows you, gives you time to reflect on what the person is saying, but also on what you want to say. So I said paraphrasing is not just being a parrot and repeating, it's actually you have to reflect and you're already starting to prepare your response. It's giving you that additional time that you need to think about it.

[47:48] Well said. And people don't realize it, especially the introverts. I said, but sometimes just paraphrase. It's okay. It gives you three seconds more to think about it.

[47:58] You know, all of these techniques, when we're in a calm, collected, buoyant mindset or mind state, they're like almost a given. Of course, of course. But the thing is, when we are emotionally engaged in some sort of conflict or dialogue or debate, these can go out the window. And so when people characterize these as soft skills, for me and what I've learned, they're some of the hardest skills. I actually call them hard skills because it takes practice, right? It's like self-defense. If you're going to learn karate or taekwondo or what have you, you just don't read a book. You have to practice it over and over. So when you are in that dire straits, you're able to reflectively use that self-defense. But I think these hard skills are also a type of verbal karate. They're verbal defense things, not to go to attack, but to understand diplomacy. But it takes practice time and time again. At least that's my perspective of things. And yeah, you're so correct, Jason.

[49:02] I like the fact that you're putting them under hard skills because it's hard skills because not only even how much we master them, we are all emotional people. And when emotions take over, man, we can lose everything. So it's how do we, we also have mastered ourselves. But then the other complexity we are underestimating is being a virtual world. Since COVID, so many things are virtual and distance. And it becomes even more complex. When you're in the same room, it's okay because you have not only the voice that helps you, but you have the physical, you have the body language, you have so many cues that help you understand what's going on. But when you're doing everything virtual or remote, it becomes even harder because you're only working with the voice. That's when the camera is off. If you're lucky that the camera is on, it's okay. You're lucky you have more information. But when you're only working with the voice, it becomes even harder to sort of detect what's happening and what's going on. And it becomes even more of a pressure on the person who's managing the situation

[50:08] and who's got to handle it. And so, yes, it's hard skills, you're spot on, and you may have as much practice as you want.

[50:18] You have to accept that mistakes will happen, and that's where vulnerability and trust becomes very important. It's okay to be, people have to accept it's okay to be vulnerable, to say, you know what, I messed up. Not to say something else, I messed up. I'm sorry. And that's one of the problems that we have in the organizations. People struggle to say I'm sorry because they see it as a weakness. But saying sorry or saying I don't know, it's just two different things. I'll grant you that. Is not a weakness, it's a strength because you're recognizing, something that you are not mastering, it's okay and that's also one of the, complexities and evolutions that I'm seeing happening is that the new generation when I'm talking of multi-generationalists is saying, tell us the truth tell us it's okay, you don't know because we know this.

[51:12] But the previous generations I would say our generation or the generation before have been brought up by saying you cannot say i'm sorry you cannot say you don't know you have to know everything which today in today's world is machine impossible, the internet is way faster than us you know yeah i mean how egotistical is that if you think you know everything right some self-reflections needed there buddy yeah exactly so uh our our time is, is running down if if if we come back to i just like to come back to a point you made let's say someone's taken over a virtual team you know they're they're spread globally or whatever across the country what are some tips you would give them to create better team cohesion if zoom or teams is their their go-to tool when it comes to meeting meeting with their people, If the only option of meeting the people is Zoom, Teams or any other tool, I would say one definitely have... Team meetings, don't have three-hour meetings because those are way too long. People's focus drops. Let me say we all know the 45 minutes concentration span is there. There's a reason why we work, we do lectures and all on 45 minutes.

[52:35] So that's one, have regular team meetings structured on 45 minutes. And then the second one is have regular one-on-ones with all the team members and even if it's for 10 minutes it's fine every second week but give them that access to meet to meet and to be able to talk and don't always have those conversations about the objectives the goals or work try to get interested in each other's life try to understand what's happening in their life especially when it's at a distance the time zones and all the other element about virtual meetings is also the time zones have that respect and i'm using a very strong word i'm conscious of it of respect of the time zone so don't always ask the person in australia to have their calls at midnight for them because it's okay for the rest of the world try to have it rotating it also shows respect for all the other cultures you know so it's a question of finding that balance and that's not always an easy job as a leader or as a manager It's not always an easy job, but finding that balance. And typically, when you are talking of team norms, that's one of those things that have to be discussed and accepted at the beginning of the relationship.

[53:49] Brilliant as we wrap up this conversation is there one key takeaway that you would like to leave with our listeners when it comes to team resilience team cohesion team resilience and team cohesion don't forget you're working with human beings and we all have our days that would be my key takeaway and it's okay that there'll be some days that will not work out and that will pass that should pass i would say that's a phrase that i love it's the impermanence of things so that's my feedback to managers allow that people are going to have their moments and it's not an easy time yeah so a bad day doesn't represent a bad team or bad leadership is just a bad day exactly this too shall pass exactly exactly yeah well vindu it's been a very enlightening and engaging conversation. I really appreciate you sharing 25 years of your experience working across different companies and multicultural teams. Thank you so much, Jason. Thank you for having me on your show. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It's been a blast. Thank you.

[54:57] Music.

[55:04] You know, in my insightful conversation with Vindu, it's not rocket science to build resilient and robust teams. What it takes is us to be present as leaders, to be in the here and now, to be attentive where we are focusing our attention. You know, becoming a new leader or moving into a leadership position where we don't know the direct reports under us, well, for most of us, that can be daunting. There can be a level of self-doubt. And of course, that's natural. Because what is it? We haven't established a track record. They don't know us and we don't know them and it takes time to build relationships.

[55:45] And one way of establishing that track record of trust and transparency is to begin the first phase of the relationship by listening, by asking questions, by exploring your direct reports, opinions, their viewpoints, sharing their experiences and knowledge. And to also establish from the get-go the rules of expectations, that social contract that we have with our team members, that part of the culture is going to be about feedback. And that feedback is a dialogue and not a monologue and that you're going to expect feedback from them about how you can improve, what you're doing well, what they need more of or less of.

[56:26] Establishing a culture where people are constantly sharing their expectations, their opinions and their viewpoints, where they can table issues without worrying about blowback or retribution, well, then you have a strong, resilient, robust team because things are not cooking under the table. Everything is addressed, whether they're small or big, or before they blow up, we can address things. And so resilience and cohesions, well, it's understanding that teams are human, that bad days don't mean bad leadership or a weak team. What it is, it's about, as Vindu said, it's about patience, it's about understanding, it's about adaptability. And each of these help build resilience and maintain cohesion through challenges, through complexities, and through change. Vindu, a personal thank you from me to you for spending some time with me today and sharing your 25 years of experience and knowledge. I found it very valuable and very insightful. So thank you.

[57:23] Well, folks, thank you for showing up for another Long Form Monday episode. I will see you Friday with Bite Size Fridays. And until then, keep well, keep strong.

[57:34] Music.