We are writing a book and we need your help! Join Amplifiers Vic & Linds on our TeamX journey

We’re writing a book! We have the structure and contents – we just need some real-life stories to support each of the chapters to bring the book to life. 

And that’s where you come in . . . we’d love you to be part of what we’re doing. 

About the book

Title: Finding your TeamX™ - Why leave teamwork to chance when there is a proven process? 

If only there was a way to take all the best bits of how we work together as a team and make it sustainable all the time – wouldn’t that be great? Read on…   

You’ve just stepped up to lead a team. You’re going to be unstoppable together. You dream of great collaboration, of team members not hesitating to help each other. Your team members can’t imagine working anywhere else. Together you’re a leading light in your organisation. 

So where do you start?   

When we learn about business we are taught about organisational structure, finance, go-to-market strategy, and sales, but we are not taught the process of building a strong team. 

Should it just be down to luck?

We don’t think so. We think this should be taught, which is why we’ve created this book about building great team experience (we call it TeamX™). We want you to know what we wish we’d known 20 years ago.   

Discover a pragmatic operating system that can help any team work more effectively together.   

When we enjoy what we do and feel supported, both the people and the business benefit.  After all, you are the best asset your business has!   

Chapter Contents

If you think you have a story that fits with any of the titles below, good, bad, or ugly, we would love to hear from you! 

Part 1 – Purpose 

Chapter 1: Find your purpose beyond the numbers 

Chapter 2: Take off your functional hat - The importance of having a joint purpose 

Chapter 3: Point to your North Star 

Part 2 – Trust 

Chapter 4: Understand your team dynamics  

Chapter 5: Gain psychological safety 

Chapter 6: Hire based on values 

Part 3 – Clarity 

Chapter 7: Build guard rails 

Chapter 8: Gain alignment 

Chapter 9: Enable accountability 

Part 4 – Simplicity 

Chapter 10: Order your priorities 

Chapter 11: Agree what you are stopping 

Chapter 12: Build simplicity as a habit  

Book Recommendation

Here’s a link to the Steve Jobs eBook that Vic referenced:

Make Something Wonderful | a book from the Steve Jobs Archive

How to get in touch

Drop us a message: team@amplifiedgroup.co.uk

Message us via LinkedIn

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Transcript

Sam 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. Bring new stories to help leaders in the tech industry execute at speed through the power of working together. I'm at home in Buckinghamshire where the sun's just trying to creep out. Vicki, I presume you're at home in Deepest Darkest Oxfordshire. What's the weather like?

Vic 0:26

Yeah, I am, and the sun is also trying to creep out here. Maybe I'm not that far away from you after all.

Sam 0:33

Maybe you're not that far away at all. So this is an unusual one, isn't it? In that we actually have an in-person guest at your end of things.

Vic 0:42

We do, and I am so thrilled that Lindsay Moore has joined us on the podcast today.

Sam 0:49

So, Lindsay, do you want to start by giving us a little bit of background on you and perhaps why you're joining us today?

Vic 0:55

Yes, hi Sam. Delighted to be at Vic's house for a change. Normally I'm looking at Vic through Zoom every every day. Um, but I work at Amplide Group, um, help with marketing and on the different leadership reports that we've done over the years. Um, and now we're starting on a new venture, which is really exciting, really scary, but I think it's really going to help anyone working in the tech industry who's in a team, but also helps us articulate what we do and how we can help people. So we thought it would be a really good idea because we really believe in what we do can help people, and we have a framework and exercises and a practical way to help teams that we decided to write a book.

Sam 1:44

Oh now, this is exciting. You heard it first, you heard it here first, hot of the press.

Vic 1:49

Yeah, so we started on a book challenge last week, so we're in the process of working out how the structure of the book. Um, do you want to say the title, Vic? Yeah, the book, and this is a working title, so this could all change, but the book is currently called Finding Team X.

Sam 2:15

Be careful how you pronounce that, perhaps. Finding Team Sex or something like that.

Vic 2:24

Well, do you know what that helps itself? That's fine.

Sam 2:27

Yeah, no, I've got to do it.

Vic 2:28

But actually, quite seriously, we're not doing this as a revenue generator, we are doing it as an educator to really be a handbook for the clients that we work with, and it's it came from so Lindsay has been saying, I think since we started working together, we have a document where you write down your dreams and and all sorts of information about yourself. And my dream was one day to write a book, which always feels a bit silly, but it's never gonna happen. And I think that's I don't know.

Sam 2:59

So that's pretty cool. So is it a murder mystery? Is it a thriller?

Vic 3:03

Is it a it might be by the end of the writing process? No, to be honest, it came from recently met up with Andy Hunt, who you know well, Sam. Actually means you know him well as well. So I I don't know if I've actually said this, but Andy is the reason that I joined VMware um to go and work for him and with him, and he was such a pleasure to work for, and I hadn't caught up with him for a while. And we met up in London a few weeks ago, and I was explaining to him about what we do and what our process is, and he said, Vic, you need to write a book, and I have absolutely no aspiration to write a book at all, but I know someone who's sitting just to the left of me now who not only has an aspiration to write a book but is a flipping awesome writer, so it's absolutely incredible to be on this journey with Lindsay.

Sam 4:02

So when you say you plural jointly are writing a book, really it's Lindsay writing a book.

Vic 4:07

It's absolutely Lindsay writing a book, yes. Vic's very good at speaking and explaining, so I pull thoughts from Vic, ask the questions, and and together we'll we'll we'll get it written. Funnily enough, but it's not just going to come from us. So we're gonna have help from Pippa, who's another amplifier of ours, who's particularly strong on um simplicity. So she's going to help us with um the chapter on simplicity. Alan, who is very good, who's who's another amplifier with us, is particularly strong around clarity and operational. So we're we're basing the book, sorry, we've jumped in a little bit here, but we're basing the book on our formula of purpose, trust, clarity, and simplicity that gives you speed of execution. And so getting help from the rest of the team, but actually the reason we wanted to do this podcast is we are asking for help from our audience as well. So I know we've got a little bit ahead of ourselves there, but if that's just the the why we're doing this, what sort of help are you looking for for from your audience? So what we're looking for is stories to the book, and I'll perhaps come into that in a minute, but maybe it would be good to start with um who the book's for. Do you think that would be a good start? Yeah. So thinking about who we work with on a day-to-day basis, it's people who are leading teams and they may be new to doing that, or actually they want that, you know, open to learning and want to find new ways of getting the best from their team. You know, there's so much pressure to hit numbers, there's so many different competing priorities, there might be new products that you've got to take to market. So there's so many things, people, pressures that people have to battle. So to have a framework to really help get, and especially with remote working as well, you know, it's even harder to build those connections and bonds between the team. So if there's a way that we can help um give a framework to people, then that's really going to help the team be more productive.

Sam 6:28

Celebrate people on that journey. And you've got the sort of the the framework, the skeleton of the book already, is that right?

Vic 6:36

So as Lindsay mentioned, we're sorry, a book proposal challenge. Is that how you describe it? Yes. So there's an amazing lady called Alison Jones who has um a company called Practical Inspiration Publishing, and twice a year she runs a 10-day book proposal challenge, and it's specifically for people within business who want to write a book that supports what they do. Um, so we've signed up to that. So we do our homework every evening and submit it. It's really giving us some focus, yeah. Outside of our day jobs, I think. But so, for example, one of the things that we had to do was we had to write what my kids would call the blurb for the back of the book.

Sam 7:21

Yeah.

Vic 7:22

And maybe if we share that, that might just give you a sense of what the of what the book is about. Yeah, so work in progress, and we can put it in the show notes. Um, so again, the book is something around finding Team X. So you've just stepped up to lead a team, you're going to be unstoppable together. You dream of great collaboration, team members not hesitating to help each other, your team members can't imagine working anywhere else. Together, you're a leading light in your organisation. So, where do you start? When we learn about business, we are taught about organisational structure, process, how to bring things to market, how to sell, but we're not taught the process of building a strong team. So, should it just be down to luck? We don't think so. And so, this is where the book talks about how you can do that to find your teammates. So, when when I present at an event, the main message that I start with is you know, there are so many things that we are taught about business. You know, we're taught how to bring products to market, we're taught how to identify the customer, we're taught sales methodology, we're not taught how to build a team. And so this book is about sharing what I wish I'd known 20 years ago about how to build a team, and there is a process for it, and an awful lot of what we will cover we do subconsciously, but when you bring it to the conscious, and then everybody is conscious of it, that's when you can really achieve Team X.

Sam 9:05

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I think um, you know, with some of this stuff we do it intuitively and some of this stuff we do for experience. But you're right, getting it out explicitly on a page for people does make sense. Yeah, and you know, even is this something that you will give to people that you've worked with, or do you think it will stand alone?

Vic 9:30

Primarily, if it does nothing else, it'll be a handbook for the organizations that we work with.

Sam 9:36

Kind of a takeaway, a reference guide, I think.

Vic 9:39

Yeah, yeah.

Sam 9:40

Keep going back to to keep normal straight and narrow, as it were.

Vic 9:44

Yeah, I mean that's one thing that Lindsay's been really keen on is this wants to be practical. You can pick it up for any page, and there's something on there that's useful. So the way that we're structuring the book is that we'll have the four principles, which I mentioned before. So purpose, trust, clarity, and simplicity. And under each of those, we will have chapters. So one of the books that has influenced me so significantly over the last few years, and you know, we've we've talked about it, we've actually done a podcast on it, Sam, is Switch, the book about change. And the way that that book is structured is you have your rider, your elephant, and your path, and then it has three chapters under each of those headings, and each chapter is a verb. So, for example, in Switch, the it's direct the rider, and under direct the rider, you have find the bright spots, script the critical moves, point to the destination, and so they're all verbs, and they're telling you to do something. But the way that Chip and Dan Heath have written that book is that they have gone out and they found stories that back up each of those points that they're trying to make in the chapter.

unknown 11:09

Right.

Vic 11:11

And that's how you remember what the book is teaching you. It's by stories, and we all know the power of storytelling. So the way that we are going to put this book together is under each of our four elements, we'll have three chapters. So, for example, uh, or the first section is on purpose, and the first chapter is going to be called finding your purpose beyond the numbers. So, what's your emotive purpose? So, what we want to do is we want to go out to our to our listeners and say, right, what stories have you got where you've found your purpose for your team that's beyond the number that has resulted in the numbers coming in?

Sam 11:59

Yeah.

Vic 12:00

Can you share that story with us? Can we feature that story in the book?

Sam 12:05

So, as part of this podcast, one of the calls to action to our listeners would then be come forward and tell us if you've got stuff that you think would work in these particular contexts.

Vic 12:15

Yes, we'd love to absolutely.

Sam 12:17

Brilliant.

Vic 12:17

Should we run for each one now and ask, see if we can get some stories? Shall we do that? Should we go through each of them?

Sam 12:26

I think we should. Makes sense, isn't it?

Vic 12:28

Okay. So just before we do, I just wanted to explain as well that the other piece, so we'll get we'll so the way that each chapter will be put together will be what the point is for the chapter, some stories to back it up, but then what we really want to also do is give our readers some exercises that they can then take to their team.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah.

Vic 12:53

How to make it happen, so that so that it is like a practical handbook. And that's the structure that we have throughout the book. And I think what makes it different, having looked at lots of different books on the market, is that this will be something that is practical, that you can pick up and put into practice rather than a book of research and ideas. This is going to really help you.

Sam 13:20

Well, the fact that every title is effectively is a verb, is a doing word.

Vic 13:24

Yes.

Sam 13:25

Means that you know it's it's driving you to take action rather than just absorb information.

Vic 13:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam 13:31

I think that makes sense.

unknown 13:33

Okay.

Sam 13:34

So we got our we got our list of list of verbs, as it were.

Vic 13:37

Yeah, we have. And these these are, you know, they might be tweaked in terms of what they are, but in terms of the topics that they're covering, they will stay the same. So this is really early days for us that we're sharing. Oh my god, yes. This is week one, by the way. So everyone's going to be on this journey with us. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Shall I just go through them and join? So if we start with purpose, we've got finding your purpose beyond the numbers. That's chapter one. Chapter two is take off your functional hat. So the importance of having a joint purpose as a team, not just representing your part of the organization. Um, and then the the third and final chapter on purpose is point to your North Star. So what's your destination? Do you want to go with trust? So, trust, the first chapter, I mean, trust is such a huge topic. And I know when we work with clients, you know, this is the one that takes most time because it is the most important. And um, so the first chapter is about gaining psychological safety. So when we talk about gaining psychological safety, this is allowing people to be vulnerable. Yes, they're able to speak out and ask for help, admit mistakes, and just not have to think about what is going to be the consequences of me saying what I'm going to say. Right. The second one, which we love, I love, and we did a podcast on this as well, understanding team dynamics. And when we do a workshop, we very often call it the aha workshop because it's oh, so actually, you're not being like that because of how you're working with me. That's that's how you are, and that's where you're coming from. And it's learning, like we learned on the very uh one of our first podcasts that we did with Chris Collette about how you meet in the middle and how you flex and change to understand where people are coming from, if they need detail, if they need proof, or if they're big picture, how you get to to meeting in the middle and understanding those team dynamics. I think that might create some good stories. And then the last one on trust is about hiring based on values, and so you can have the most incredible team, and then you bring somebody in that doesn't quite fit, and it can completely upset the Epicot. And so, one of the lessons actually, we also learned when we had Mark Templeton on the podcast was about Citrix going and growing so quickly that they brought some people in that didn't fit the initial values of the company and how that really changed the company. So making sure that you are really taking time to hire the people that have the same values because, as we know, um, trust is incredibly fragile.

Sam 16:47

Yeah, and it's too easy to do that when your business is growing like toxic.

Vic 16:53

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Sam 16:56

You know, it's it's it's literally all hands to the pump, and you've got people starting to burn out, and you just feel you need to plug people in wherever. But you're absolutely right, you probably run the risk of making things worse by plugging the wrong people in.

Vic 17:08

Absolutely, and so and and there's a lovely video from Simon Sinek as well that talks about you know, you can have an absolute high flyer in a sales organization that is bringing in the big deals, but it's having a detrimental effect on the rest of the team, and you take you have the courage to take that as you would describe out of out of the organization and how that lifts everybody else up. So really being strong on good behavior.

Sam 17:42

I don't remember who called it this, but somebody or what uh uh one particular company refers to it as no brilliant jerks, which is probably slightly more polite than uh I think it's I think it's a Netflix thing. I think it's part of it.

Vic 17:55

I think it could be Netflix.

Sam 17:56

You know you've probably all all seen the you know the the presentation of how Netflix hides, you know, they want people to be absolutely top tier, you know, if they're not if they're not um you know working at that level, then they'll manage them out of the business but do in a really positive way and you know pay them three months salary or what you know, whatever it is, you know, look look after them, but um at the same time they don't want anybody who may be an absolute you know the cliche on LinkedIn is rock star, right? But if they're if they're unpleasant to everybody around them, we don't want to, yeah. So it's Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix. That was what yeah.

Vic 18:38

Well but Mark Templeton also talked about the podcast he did with us, which is called We Were a Band, one of his real um messages was um there's no rock stars, we're a band. It's not about having one star.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah.

Vic 18:59

So yeah. So the trust, the trust um portion of the book, I think one of the challenges that we're going to have is uh really keeping it succinct because we could have six chapters on trust, not just three. So it's it's choosing the most impactful stories and the most impactful uh exercises that we can give our readers to do that will make a difference because, as Lindsay said, trust is the absolute foundation for everything. Um, so the third one, the third part will be clarity. Clarity in our formula here is probably the one that you don't see lots of books about. So there's lots of books on purpose, there's lots of books on just, there's lots of um stories out there at the moment about the importance of simplicity. Clarity in in our experience of the clients that we're working with is the one that stops people in their tracks. And the fascinating one on clarity is that very often we get asked to engage with organizations about accountability. They want us to come and fix accountability issues that they have. Yeah, the first message that we have to get them to understand is you can't leapfrog to accountability, you have to go through this process of having a purpose for the team, of having that foundational trust, but then having the clarity, because if you haven't got clarity, it can do two things. One, it can set people off on a track and they just don't know where they where they're going. So I liken it to, and I think I might have said this before, you know, those dogs on those extendable dog leads that you have that you just keep going and going and going and going and going, and then and then the dog it reaches the end of the lead and the dog jets choke back. We did uh some work with a a UK leadership team a few years ago, and the leadership team was very people focused, they wanted everybody to feel empowered, and yet when we interviewed the team and we did our first version of the speed check with them, what came back was this team did not feel empowered in the slightest. And the reason that they didn't feel empowered was because they didn't know what the guardrails were, they didn't know what the guiding principles were for them to make their decisions or do what they wanted. So they're all off doing a hundred different things, but they're all going in different directions. So the first chapter of our um of The portion of the book around clarity is about building your guardrails. So, what are the principles that will enable you to make the decisions? And then you can feel empowered. So that's the first one. So after you've built your guardrails, the next chapter is about gaining alignment. So again, there is so much energy in field organizations being wasted because people are working on opposing initiatives or not on initiatives that are really going to move the meter. And I think we've spoken before about if a leadership team isn't 100% aligned, if there, if there is a degree of separation at the leadership level, then as that trickles down through the field organization, that degree of separation, I and I remember you tell me further and further away. It gets further away, and there's a there's a there's a technical term for it which I can never remember.

Sam 23:07

Divergence, perhaps?

Vic 23:08

I think it's divergence. Yes. And so you just I just when I picture this, and this will be the picture in the book to support it, you just imagine a protractor, but the at the center of that protractor, those lines are very narrow, but as they spread out, they get wider. That's what happens. That's why you have salespeople going. I don't know why marketing are doing what they're doing. It's because there isn't a hundred percent alignment at the time. So that's just an example. So that's quite a good story then to work out. Sales are selling one thing to the client, that's their priority, but marketing is selling a completely different angle. Um, and then the last the last chapter under clarity is going to be about enabling accountability, and that is really about having the absolute clarity so that you can hold people accountable. Because if if people if people are vague on what they're being expected to do or what you're expecting people to do, you can't hold them accountable, and that's probably the biggest issue that we have because people come out of meetings and we still do it, the Amplify group, we're still working at it. We say, right, we think we've decided on what we're doing, and then you go off to do it and think, actually, what what is it that I need to do? Yeah, and ensuring you are absolutely clear on what the expectations are, then it makes things makes having accountability so much easier.

Sam 24:37

That makes sense.

Vic 24:38

Yeah, so what we're looking for, just to to remind our listeners, is we're those those three on clarity of building your guardrails, gaining alignment, and enabling accountability. If they've got any stories that are where there's been a lack of guardrails, or there's been a lack of clarity, there's the accountability is is challenging, or on the other hand, where they've seen seen those things in place and it's really helped. We want to hear both.

Sam 25:12

That makes sense, yeah. Yeah, the good, the good and the bad aspect.

Vic 25:16

Yes, yeah.

Sam 25:17

Yeah.

Vic 25:18

So that leads us on to the final, the final one, simplicity. Do you want to talk a little bit about that one?

Sam 25:25

This is going to be a short one, presumably.

Vic 25:29

Yes. So you may remember, Sam, that we did a podcast with Jeffrey Moore around a chicken can only lay one egg at a time. That was the title of the podcast. Jeffrey talked about the crisis of prioritization. So if you've got more than three priorities, you haven't got priorities. But actually, one of the things that we need to learn how to do better, because it's all right to have three or four priorities, but actually stack rank them. What is the number one priority? And if you can do that, then you can get on to the next chapter, which is agree what you are stopping. So if you're going to take on something new to do, agree what you're stopping. What are you going to stop doing? And then the last one is about building simplicity as a habit. And this actually came from Mark Templeton again, and he talked about celebrating simplicity. Somebody else that we are working pretty closely with at the moment is Paul Wefels from the Chasm group. And we shared with him our speed check. And one of the caveats that we share when we share the speed check, because the speed check report is only three pages long, and we've purposely only made the speed check three pages long because it is so simple, and so that it doesn't take a lot to absorb what it's telling you, and it cuts through the cracks so you can actually get to how you can really make a difference. And considering, you know, the organizations that Paul has worked with, when we shared it with him, he went, This is absolutely what organizations are looking for, they're looking for simplicity. So don't be ashamed of it, be proud of it. The fact that that's actually what you're doing. So the chapter is build simplicity as a habit. And I think, I mean, thinking about what we do at Amplified Group. So I was working on a communication to a client yesterday for a new proposal, new client. And in the end, what I sent was probably a quarter of the original proposal because I just cut it down and cut it down and cut it down because they haven't people haven't, because we're so time poor, the more simple we can keep things, funnily enough, the simpler you keep things, the faster you can go. And we live and breathe that all the time. So it's teaching that. Yeah, I tell you also where I've noticed keeping things simple, and it's just um working with tech startups. Keeping things simple, it comes so naturally because you've got to be so quick to market to try new things. And if things don't work, you review and do something different and try again. And I really see that naturally simplicity is just like a way of life in startups. And then it starts to change.

Sam 28:35

Or at least should be. At least should be.

Vic 28:38

I think one thing we've learned as well throughout is just keeping our language simple and trying to explain things in a way that we would perhaps talk about it rather than seeing it written in very long wordy sentences. That actually was something that Lindsay really brought to Amplify Group when she first started, was right, we're gonna make this as though we're having a chat with someone.

Sam 29:01

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think you know, they're those who don't really understand what they're all about have a tendency to fluff it up and use a load of a load of buzzwords. The really bright people who really get it can convey it in an instant. Joe Bagley, for example. Yes, you know, okay, so you know, he'll he'll he'll have to use buzzword buzzwords because it's part of his job, but his clarity of thought and his way of conveying that stuff is magnificent because he's got to be one of the most intelligent people that we know, and he is able to get it across in in simple terms, even though he understands it down to the nth degree. Yeah, whereas I think there's a lot a lot of of almost wannabes who fluff stuff up with with buzzwords and crazy talk, but really it's um it's you know, there's not as much substance under there as perhaps there should be.

Vic 29:52

So, and that that will be very conscious with us as we put this book together as well. I say we, the the talented lady on my left. Oh, it's well, um, as we put the book together, but it's it's about it needs to be so easy to read, you want to read it. Patrick Lencioni, yeah, it's our hero, yeah, he really is. Yeah, absolutely. So that that is the framework to our book. So again, it's on the four elements of purpose, trust, clarity, and simplicity, three chapters on each with a verb, a direction of what we're asking the readers to do with stories that explain why it's important, and then some really simple exercises that they can do with their teams so that everybody can find their team X. Yeah. And if you've got any stories, can you email them to team at amplifiedgroup.co.uk and we'll add that to the show notes. Yeah. Or get in touch with us on LinkedIn.

Sam 31:03

Fantastic. Well, I guess we're not going to use do the usual summaries of book recommendations because the only book recommendation really appropriate would be this one.

Vic 31:13

But we will put a link to the new free ebook that has come out from Steve Jobs Archive, and it's called Make Something Wonderful, Steve Jobs in his own words. I was reading it over the weekend, and it is spine-tinglingly good. Um, and so we'll put the link because it's a it's a free e-book.

Sam 31:37

Perfect. I'll look forward to having a read of that. Yeah, it's really lovely. Great stuff. Any final thoughts for either of you?

Vic 31:43

From me, this is work in progress. We will be sharing how we go along um with our listeners. We are in we were initially planning to do this and just publish this through um Amazon's publishing, but we'll see how we get on. We've been very encouraged by Allison, haven't we? Yes, yeah, definitely. But I I just really hope people find this useful, and that's the real goal is that this is actually going to be useful for people. That's just what we have in mind for.

Sam 32:16

Fantastic. Well, I shall look forward to proofreading it for you.

Vic 32:19

Thank you.

Sam 32:20

Brilliant. So it just remains for me to say thanks for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, your comments and your subscriptions, and of course, on this occasion, your stories are most gratefully received.