Pick a Lane & Stick to It - How to Build and Maintain a High Trust Culture

Vice President of HR Verena Sunday talks about how to build and maintain a high-trust culture by using a pragmatic approach. With no HR or corporate speak this podcast gets to the heart of how by picking a lane and sticking to it, your organisation can be set up for long term success.  

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Transcript

Sam 0:08

Welcome to Get Amplified, the podcast with tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders covering topics from keeping up with the pace of change, staying fulfilled in your role, and looking out for the well-being of your team and, of course, yourself. This podcast is brought to you by the Amplified Group. So, as I say every time we're virtual, I'm at home in reasonably sunny Buckinghamshire today. Vicky, of course, is in deepest darkest Oxfordshire. Sia is over in the Netherlands, and our guest today is joining us from the very exotic location of Switzerland. So, Sha, do you want to start by telling us what we're going to cover in this episode, please?

Sia 0:41

Certainly will. Thank you, Sam. So I'm really pleased we're covering this topic actually because the guest we have today has truly put what we're about to talk about into practice in the workplace. And because of that, we're going to be talking about the Five Behaviours methodology and how you can make this model intrinsic throughout your organization. So to help us do that, we've got a guest, uh Verena Sunday, who's the vice president of HR for Europe and Asia for AOC. And as the Amplify group, we've worked with Verena for many years now. We actually, I actually knew Verena in the past when we were working together at Citrix and uh had the pleasure of her HR expertise there. And since we've been working with AOC and the team there, I think it's probably best that I leave that to Verena to explain how we got engaged with them. Um, but in the meantime, Verena, perhaps you could just introduce yourself and give us uh a little bit of your background.

Verena 1:44

Thank you for having me, first of all.

Vic 1:46

Very welcome.

Verena 1:48

Um I look back on a 20-year uh career in HR, and before that, I uh my background is in languages, so cultures, um languages, uh different varieties of people have always been my interest. Um I then came into HR and before joining AOC Resins, I worked in uh IT, so in tech, which is where I met Shah. Um I knew Wiki by name, but we never actually met. Um that's basically me.

Sam 2:19

Yeah. Brilliant. Great stuff. So, Vicky, if we're gonna be talking about the five behaviors today, perhaps you could give us a little background and maybe a quick overview of the model.

Vic 2:29

Yeah, I will do. Thanks, Sam. So we have another short podcast that we've recorded that is going to explain the five behaviors in a little bit more detail. So I'm just going to do the elevator pitch for it a bit, if if that makes sense.

Sam 2:44

I'm very happy with that.

Vic 2:45

And it an elevator pitch, an elevator that has not got stuck, unlike many elevator pitches that I've seen, where the elevator is seriously.

Sam 2:54

Well, it's true. Or perhaps the elevator doesn't quite make it to the top floor.

Vic 2:59

Yes, I think maybe that's what happens. So, so very quickly, the five behaviors of a team, and it starts with trust. That is the foundation, and trust defined by vulnerability-based trust, and what we really mean by that is where it's a safe place at work to really say what you think, to not hold back, and to be able to ask for help and to be able to admit mistakes that you can all learn from. So that's what we mean by trust. And if you have that level of trust, then you're able to have conflict. So Patrick defines it as conflict in the boardroom and code of governance. They talk about robust debate. So this is really debate where you get to the best outcome, and it's not the artificial harmony where everyone sits around the table nodding their head going, yes, yes, yes, and then comes out and moans that that isn't actually what they needed to talk about. It's about where you're able to put everything on the table, really debate things, and then get to the best outcome for the business. So that's conflict. And if you're able to do that, then if you we have the term if you weigh in, if you feel like you've been listened to, then you're more likely to buy in. So you have to weigh in to buy in, which brings us on to the next level, which is commitment. So if you feel like you've been heard, you're much more likely to commit to the decisions that you've made as a team together. And if you commit with absolute clarity to what you're doing, then it's much easier to the next work, the next level, which is accountability. It's much easier to hold each other accountable because you've got absolute clarity on what you're holding each other accountable for, and then the final level is results, and we're talking about collected results and not putting our own personal agenda or even our team or department's agenda above what the actual entire team of your peers is doing and what the overall objective of the business is. So putting that goal first and taking off your functional hat, if you like, and looking at actually what the business needs to do, and that's the results that we're talking about.

Sam 5:13

Brilliant. Thanks for that, Vicky. Really good background. Um, and we will have a longer version of that snippet available in the podcast series for anybody who wants to delve a little deeper. Um, so uh back to you, Verena. Perhaps you could give us a little bit of background.

Verena 5:28

AOC resin produces uh composite resins, and you probably go, What? Um this is actually it's it's a product product that is used in many different industries. Um car industry, boat industry, construction, uh sometimes even medical, um piping, what we also call relining. So it's many different industries, not just one. Uh most people don't know it, the company, because it's B2B business. Um we're worldwide. Uh I look after um HR for EMEA in Asia, where we are around 600 people.

Sam 6:05

And what was going on in the business that prompted you to start on this five behaviors journey?

Verena 6:11

That's a very good question. Where to start? Um, the company originally belonged to a Dutch um uh big corporation, and we were sold off um along with two other companies because we didn't really fit into their original portfolio. So we we detached from a big mother company um where you know a lot of corporate um uh processes and corporate um flavor of the month had been run with regards to um uh leadership training, management training, you name it.

Sam 6:48

A lot of magic bullets had been deployed.

Verena 6:50

Yes, exactly. And we wanted to find something or create something that was unique, unique to our standalone company, and that fitted our can-do mentality, and it needed to be pragmatic and easy and understandable without being you know HR speak and corporate speak.

Sam 7:13

Yeah, that makes sense. So, were you had you come across Patrick Lancione before?

Verena 7:18

Were you familiar with the five behaviors model, or was it new to not with the five behaviors model, but I'd I'd I'd heard of Patrick before. Um I had just trained my team in MBTI, and Patrick is a is a huge fan of MBTI as well. So this is how I knew about him. And then when the CEO at the time came back and said, because I said, you know, I get it, we want to deploy our own management theory or our management strategy, um, but there's as many strategies as there is sand on the on the beach. So at the end of the day, it will all come down to um finding the one that we believe in, believe in, and that we can then uh cascade down. And when the CEO at the time came back and said, you know, um I heard about Patrick Lancioni, I was doing a little dance inside. I really yeah, because I really I really like Patrick's way of tackling sometimes very complex subjects and making them seemingly so easy because they are the way he explains it.

Sam 8:22

Well, the thing with a lot of this stuff is we all kind of know it somewhere subconsciously, it's bringing bringing it to the surface, isn't it?

Vic 8:30

Yes.

Sam 8:32

So was it important to you to select a single model for the whole organization, one framework across the business?

Verena 8:38

Yeah, yeah, because um at the well, I just started at the company, which then still was part of the the Dutch uh corporation, and I was asked to introduce yet another leadership model, and that was exactly the the reaction that I got in the business. They were all like, you know, obviously not not another one, not towards me, but they were all going, you know, rolling their eyes, not another one. So for us, it was important that it was something that we all believed in and that we would stick with.

Sam 9:09

Yeah. And I guess as as the the new person as you were at the time, you've kind of got one shot to make an impact if you introduce a model doesn't work, it's difficult to then go and do it again and again.

Verena 9:21

Yes, correct.

Sam 9:22

Yeah, no, that makes makes a lot of sense. So, how did you start? Wait, how did you kick it all off?

Verena 9:27

Well, you always start at the top, don't you? Um, you know, we had um uh I was I was uh I just bought everything I knew about uh Lencioni, um, dug myself in, I read through the the exercises, the leadership team, uh, took the online assessment, and then we basically just started looking at the assessment. But it was, I'm not gonna say haphazardly because I did prepare myself, but you know, at one point I realized we're only going to get that far without help.

Sam 10:00

Yeah. So that was at the point at which you decided you needed an external agency to help you out. Correct.

Verena 10:07

Yeah, yeah. Also because I was part, and I still am, part of that team. And you cannot hold a workshop and be part of that same team.

Sam 10:17

Yeah, if you're deep within that team, to be the facilitator as well isn't really fair, is it's it's not gonna work. Yeah, yeah. So that makes sense. So how can we choose Amplified Group in particular?

Verena 10:31

Oh, it was it was actually sheer coincidence. I was on LinkedIn um uh reading something that Patrick had said, and I think Shah, you had commented on it, and uh I saw you know you your uh your uh employer had changed, so it said amplify group, and then I contacted Shah, and that's how we started talking.

Sam 10:57

Ah, brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Sia 11:00

I think Verena put it really nicely when we were talking the other day and said something like the universal came together. Yes.

Sam 11:08

That's really nice.

Sia 11:11

And it was at that point that uh she saw that uh the Amplified group had been born and this is where we were focusing. So, yes, the timing couldn't have been better.

Sam 11:21

Fantastic, fantastic serendipity, I think, is the word.

Speaker 3 11:25

Oh, that's a nice one, yeah.

Sam 11:27

Yeah, it's a lovely word. I'm a language geek too, Verena. We'll talk about that when we finish recording the podcast. Um, John, it might be a good time for you to talk us through the steps you took with Verena and the team and how that all came together.

Sia 11:41

Yeah, sure. So uh as I say, you know, Verena contacted me and we started chatting, um, and then I was flown over to Switzerland to sit down with her and some of the senior leadership team and just discuss what their aims were, what their objective was, what what were they trying to achieve? Because as Verena just quite rightly said, they'd done an awful lot of work already. They they'd used Myers Briggs as the basis for the behavioural uh assessments. They'd also done the team assessments, so they'd taken it as far as they needed it to go at that point. And so the request to us was help us be able to bring it to life, help us to be able to act on it, because now we want this to be intrinsic throughout the organization. We want to have one language, one way of dealing with uh teamwork and uniting the teams within uh AOC. So that's really where we started. And and and the great thing about it is that they set the tone from the top. The leadership team were very much like we want this, they were open for it, uh, and they wanted this to work. So, what we suggested before we even started is to do some level of diagnosis. So uh looking into how the rest of the teams thought about the leadership team and how uh were there any challenges there that they faced. So we started with some some just click-down interviews with some of the rest of the team, as well as working directly with the leadership team, and by that you get both sides, and you can really uh understand where potentially there are gaps or challenges or areas that we could improve on. So that's where we started.

Sam 13:32

So, Verena, as leader of HR, how were you thinking you could scale the model to become throughout the organization? How did you go about making that happen?

Verena 13:40

Well, as Sia just pointed out, as an HR team, you know, um we read all of all about it, we we got the workbooks, we did the assessments, we did some analysis, but we we were not specialized in it. I mean, it's one of the many things that my HR team doing during the single day. Um, and so I uh Sia and I sat down and I said, you know, what really helped me is if you could train my HR people to hold shorter um sessions, because nowadays, I mean I don't have to tell you guys because you deal with tech every day, it is really difficult to get managers to dedicate time for team development. Everybody wants it, but when it comes down to fixing the agenda, finding time, and having the commitment from management, then suddenly it becomes a bit more difficult.

Sam 14:39

So I think we've used the phrase before on the podcast, um, it's difficult to find the time to work on your business rather than in your business.

Verena 14:47

Correct. Um, so in making these sessions much shorter and training my HR team to hold a two to two and a half hour workshop focusing on one of the um uh dysfunctions or one of the behaviors, it we made it scalable and we made it much easier for the management to commit to it as well, time-wise.

Sam 15:14

Yeah, yeah, and I guess if you if it's something that is delivered from within the organization, it has more impact and it gets deployed on a more continuous basis than having somebody in to deliver it in the first instance. Is that right?

Verena 15:30

That is right as well. Yeah, um, we have a very good level of trust within the organization, and um, you know, kudos to Shah. She she she was able to build up a really good relationship with the leadership team, but then scaling it down and having Shah to fly everywhere, it just didn't work out. Yeah, it's also it's a button question, it's a timing question, and it's also like you said, it's a matter of oh, again, an external consultant, what are they gonna tell us?

Sam 16:00

Yes, Sha and Amplified Group got you set up and got you started, and then it's something that you took on yourself and continued. Interesting. So, where do you think it's had the most impact?

Verena 16:10

In quite a few teams, which I don't want to name.

Sam 16:13

No, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, you can maintain confidence, that's absolutely fine.

Verena 16:18

Yes, um uh true like a true HR person, I will do that. Um what the most impact I see is um that um people start using the language, the lingo, and that to me is like you know, again, I do a little dance internally because I know it has landed. When you see that terminology becoming common parlance, yes, yes, when they talk about the good conflict we just had, you know, this is this is language they wouldn't have used. Uh, I think some of them might have actually walked away from the conflict, whereas now they realize okay, there's a conflict and we need to sit down and we need to uh uh have a robust conflict and then get a commitment on whatever we're gonna do. So seeing and hearing that in everyday workday situations, that's that's really uh reassuring and it's made me realize it has landed and people are acting upon it. Of course, what we've also seen is that in certain teams, productivity has gone up, results have gone up.

Sam 17:24

So you've seen actual measurable business impact?

Sia 17:27

Yes, yeah. So, Sam, I just want to jump in there and uh talk about the the point you made about measurement. Even though uh, as Varena said, we're not going to talk about specific teams. I think it's important to note that where trust went up, and we were able to show that on all of the comparison reports, where trust went up, the results of those specific areas also increased, and in some cases by 33%, which is uh phenomenal.

Sam 17:58

That's fantastic. Um what did you learn through the process?

Verena 18:03

What did I learn through the process? That I was right to be wanting something simple and pragmatic, which was nice to see. Um but if you ask me for like key takeaways, um I would say always start at the top. So make sure you have buy-in sponsorship from uh top management. Um get external expertise because as an internal person you can only take it so far.

Sam 18:40

Yeah.

Verena 18:41

And then number three, I'm I'm sorry, but I have to emphasize this have fun while doing it.

Sam 18:50

I think fun's ridiculously important in this.

Verena 18:52

It is extremely important. I mean, if you listen to Patrick's podcasts, um Patrick Lencioni, he always has fun and it transmits through his voice and and the the choice of language, it transmits, he has fun.

Sam 19:08

Life's too short, and if you're spending you know eight to ten hours a day on work for 45 years of your life minus a few weeks of holiday, you've got to enjoy yourself.

Verena 19:16

You've got to enjoy yourself. Doesn't mean you're not taking it seriously, but you're having fun while doing it. And believe me, I've had some sessions, especially with some project teams where you know they're not in the same function. Um, it was tough going. Yeah, talking about conflict, it was tough going. I had to take time out, I had to send people out and sort out the differences. Yeah, but at the end of the day, everybody was energized, everybody said, Hey, when are we doing the next one?

Sam 19:45

Yeah, and that's what you want to achieve. Maybe we need to do a podcast on fun and humor as a sort of a bonding function amongst teams. I think that would be a really interesting uh route to take. So maybe maybe we'll think about that for series two.

Sia 20:01

And I think what Verena just said there, you know, it takes effort. You know, that that's that's for sure. That's really the the the emphasis there. And I think also, Sam, I was thinking about it when Verena, you were talking just now, you know, creating the perfect storm, it takes a bit of time as well. And we've been doing this over a period of a couple of years now, haven't we? And and as as you said, I'm gonna reiterate the kind of steps you took. But you know, you start at the top uh with the with the leadership team and having them open. And we worked very closely with them, and as you say, I had to build a relationship because we have to build trust. You know, that's the foundation that Vicky talked about earlier. And for that leadership team to trust me, you trusted me, you knew me, but I had to build the trust and the credibility with the leadership team first, and then then I could work with the rest of the team out in the field, and by doing that, I was able to really dig deeper and understand truly some of the challenges they might have had that the leadership team were just not seeing because they were just doing what they needed to do to keep the lights on there. Um, but then the third part of what we did, which was really the the latest part, is as you say, you couldn't just say, okay, sharp, jump on a plane, go here, go here, go here, and build up that trust and build up that relationship with every single one of those teams. So when we when we sat down together and talked about how can we scale this, how can we truly scale this, in the IT world where we come from, because I think you know everything relates to each other, it was very much that we used to think about, oh, let's do a train the trainer, right? Let's go in there and let's talk to an expert team and have them absorb your expertise to a point, because obviously, as accredited part accredited partners of the five behaviors, we have a much more in depth training, but lending That training to a point to your team, to your HR team, who are highly skilled in HR and have done lots of training throughout their careers, giving them that ability to give a taster of Lencioni, to do that introduction piece of maybe to understand how to interpret the results of those team assessments so that you end up saying, okay, accountability might be a problem there. I know how to interpret that, but I also know how to address that, is something that we did in the Train the Trainers. So I really enjoyed doing that with your team because they were like sponges. Yeah, because they knew what they were talking about, but they were just like, oh, this is something new for us to learn. So uh that was a great experience, yeah. Yeah.

Sam 22:51

So it's always always nice to be teaching a willing listener. Exactly.

Vic 22:55

And and Sha, didn't didn't you continue to work with them? Wouldn't you do some support work for them if they needed if they needed anything?

Sia 23:04

Yeah, so one of my very favourite things, as you probably know if you've ever speaked to me, is mentoring and coaching, right? I love to do that. So what Verena did very smartly as the leader is she built in some coaching or or just uh at the end of the training that we did. So before they were going to do a workshop, um, because you know they were slightly nervous, something's new, they haven't done it before. We had a session over the phone where I just coached them through it. And I coached them through that session, and then they had more confidence and they could ask me questions and we could work together, and then they were able to do the workshop. And and Verena, correct me if I'm wrong, blow me on trumpet again. Do you think that was something that worked well for us?

Verena 23:52

It worked very well, it was very appreciated. Um, also because it wasn't me who's doing it, but you did it as a subject matter expert and not their bots. So I think they could be much more vulnerable with you, even though I think you know, and I know we have a very good relationship in the team. You do having you there as the subject matter expert, it just helped being even more vulnerable and saying, Look, Shah, I'm not quite sure how should I do this? And that was a great help.

Sia 24:20

Yeah, and that's a measure of a good leader that's able to say, I can only go so far, and then I can hand over to an outside perspective, which you know, again lends itself to a slightly different conversation uh with the team. So uh yeah, yeah, it was it was great. It was good fun as well. We had fun, yes, yes, fun is so important.

Sam 24:41

Yes, yeah, it's so what happens next, Rena? What what what do you do next in this area? Because it's you know it's not just a set of forget, you don't roll this stuff out and then leave it.

Verena 24:51

Correct. So we what we've just done, um Sam, is we have um done some retests. So we at we had the teams that had already taken the assessment take the assessment again. And some teams who in the first round um around said, we'll wait and see, have now said, Oh, we've heard so many good things about it, let us take the assessment as well. So two things have happened. We've done the retest and we've done tests with teams that haven't done it before. And with the teams that have done the retest, I mean it's just fantastic. That's what uh Sha and I have been working on these last couple of weeks. We've looked, we've looked at every single question and you know, at the results, have they gone up, have they gone down, how much have they gone up? We looked at the team compositions because they always um influenced uh the end result, of course. And um, yeah, and then my HR team members will take those results back into the teams and discuss them again. And they've been throughout, they've been extremely positive.

Sam 25:54

So you'll keep it running as an ongoing process just to keep it topmost in people's minds. Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:00

Definitely.

Sam 26:00

So that makes sense. Brilliant.

Verena 26:02

Because again, we didn't want the flavor of a month or flavour of a year or flavour of two years. You know, we believe in this, so we're gonna continue working with it.

Sam 26:12

Yeah, and people do get busy, and you know, they it slips out of their mind as time goes on, and that's understandable. So to keep it top next to mind, I think is really important.

Speaker 3 26:21

Well, for some for some teams, you know, I've looked at the date when they took the first assessment, and it'd been two and a half years, and I think I thought, oh yeah, where's the time gone?

Sam 26:31

And personnel change, people change roles, people change focus. Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I think that's a a really commendable effort. Um, so thank you for that. That was all very, very interesting and insightful. So, Sha, I think it's Hero Time.

Sia 26:47

It is hero time indeed. Um, so uh probably anybody's listening that hasn't listened into the podcast before is thinking, what on earth is hero time? It's not like hammer time, right? We're not all gonna start dancing around in our big pants or anything.

Sam 27:04

Although that could be arranged.

Sia 27:05

Well, it could be, I guess, yeah. But again, going back to the fun thing, right? So um what uh Amplified Group have as our brand is a little stick man and his name is Hero. And it's not about us being the heroes, but making our clients the heroes, like Verena is our hero, okay? So what we wanted to do is just ask each of our guests that come on to tell us who their hero is. And I know it's been some of them have like flown into it and loved it, and some have found it very difficult. But if I can just break it down to something very simple, like if it can be something really easy, like the guy that gave you the coffee, or my, or as I said before, the person that walks my dog, um, or somebody that's really motivated you um uh along the way in your career. So, Verena, on the spot, my dear, who's your hero? I've actually got two. Oh, great, love it. Surprise, surprise.

Verena 28:04

Couldn't think of one, and then amplified it then. Yes, I've amplified it. So um, as uh Sia, you know that. Uh the others on the call don't know, and the listeners surely don't know. I've played basketball for a very long time. And um I was a big fan and still am of the Chicago Bulls. And I'm talking about the team back in the 90s when Michael Jordan played for them. And Michael Jordan is one of my heroes because when you talk to him, he will always talk about don't look just about my wins, but also look at my my my losses that I've had, so the t the the important games that he's lost because he's learned from them. And he's a very um humble person and he's always been a team player. Yes, he's the big Michael Jordan, but he would feed the ball when it was necessary for the team. So that's why he's one of my big heroes. And the second one is actually Patrick Lencioni. I admire his enthusiasm, his energy. He is such a down-to-earth guy. When you hear when you hear him in the podcasts, they have fun. Sometimes he goes, Oops, I probably shouldn't have said that. He's so natural, and I like that about a good leader that they display what they're talking about. So he talks about vulnerability-based trust. He opens himself up during those podcasts, he's just being himself.

Vic 29:36

Here, here what he has is so simple and so powerful, and it's a real privilege to be able to bring his methodology to to the teams that we work with, and it it's just the way he explains things, and he I get that, and I you know he's I the summer that we got into this, I devoured all his books, and I I hate business books. I get to chapter two and I am bored senseless. You and me both. Oh, but but his books and the way that you because they're written as a fable, you want to you want to turn the page and you want to find out what's happening, and you can just relate to it. But the thing that I like about him the most is I can remember every single thing I've read that he talks about and his podcasts, and I can quote them. I don't know how he's he's absolutely he's absolutely magic, and this methodology is so powerful because it is memorable and you can live it and make it intrinsic every day, which is you know what you're absolutely doing in your organisation. So the partnership that we've had with you is is is been tremendous. Thank you. Thank you.

Sam 30:51

But Michael Jordan's still a cooler hero.

Vic 30:54

He is yeah, I yeah, okay. I'm I'm gonna not say Patrick's not cool, we can edit that out. I don't think he is particularly cool, and we will definitely edit this bit out because um as as uh Shawn knows Simon Sinek is my absolute guilty pleasure, and I could watch him talk, but I hate his books, he can't write for Tuppy, they're really difficult to read. Yeah, anyway, this bit is going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Verena 31:23

But that's that's the main reason why we decided for Patrick because it just couldn't be more HR speak, corporate speak, consultant speak, whatever you want to call it. It had to be pragmatic, it had to be simple, it had to make human have uh business sense, it had to be applicable and just plain out simple. That's why we decided yeah, it does. Yeah, yeah.

Sam 31:52

Makes sense, makes sense. But Michael Jordan's still cooler. We digress, and I should probably do the do the close now. So if you want to learn more, go and have a read of Patrick's book, Five Behaviors, while you wait for our next episode, where we're back in the world of tech talking about the power of teamwork and how important that is in the context of keeping up with the pace of change. Thanks for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. If you liked it, please be sure to subscribe, and we'll see you next time.