Why Creating Clarity is Vital for Team Productivity - Paul Burke SVP Glasswall

In the last episode of series one, the GET Amplified team are joined by Paul Burke, SVP of Product Marketing at Glass Wall and client of the Amplified Group.

We explore why clarity is needed at every level of the organisations and how lack of it can paralyse individuals and teams and cause silos in organisations.

You can find the Team Alignment Assessment we talk about that will help you assess where you are as a team and enable you to start the conversation here: Team Speed Check Get Started 
 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello and welcome to Get Amplified, the podcast for 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 yourself. Brought to you by the Amplified Group. As always, we're virtual. I'm back in back home in Bucks where legions of pheasants are trying to muscle in on today's show. Vicky, I assume you're at home in Deepest Darkest Oxford.

Vic 0:33

I am, and I'm very impressed that you took up the challenge to get pheasants into this. You've done it already.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Well, I've actually been uh assailed by another bird. I'm not even sure what sort of bird it is. Really interesting colours. I'll send you a photo later. You can help me identify it. And Sha, you're in uh Netherlands. How's the wildlife up there?

Sia 0:51

Well, the wildlife is um pretty calm. It's sunny, there are blue skies, and I've been on the beach walking early this morning. So it's gorgeous actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

That sounds fantastic.

Sia 1:02

I know, so it's a sunny Netherlands for a change.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Brilliant. And we've got our guest, Paul. Where are you, Paul?

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Good morning. Just to kind of complete a bit more coverage of the home counties. I'm uh in deepest darkest Hertfordshire.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Oh, okay, not so far away. So, Shao, what's our topic for today? What are we going to cover in this episode?

Sia 1:22

Thank you, Sam. So, our topic today is one of our favourites. It's why clarity is important and how best to obtain it within the team. And I'm really pleased to introduce our guest today, Paul Berg, who we used to work with, and I'm really delighted to say is now a client of ours at the Amplified Group. So looking back on the first engagement with Last Wall, I just thought I'd go back and take a look at it. And one of the things that were focuses was actually team morale and happiness. So Paul's definitely on the same page as us. So with that, Paul, perhaps you could uh just give us a bit of uh history, career history on you before we we get started with Sam.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Sure, sure. So um the bulk of my career I have been in product management, which is fundamentally the process of taking ideas and turning them into revenue streams. Um, prior to that, in my early career, I did a little bit of technical and customer support, but mostly it's been product management for the last 20 odd years, more years than I care to mention. Um, so I've worked in companies both large and small. Um, I've worked in businesses selling B2C solutions as well as B2B. I've done everything from being the frontline hands-on product manager right the way through to setting up and running full product management teams for companies as they've evolved their environments. I've worked uh for organizations both UK-based and all over the world, and all of those different things have given me a pretty good insight into how businesses operate and what's important to them. Impressive.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

So, Vicki, why have we chosen clarity as our topic for today?

Vic 3:04

Yeah, well, as Sharon said, it is one of our favourite topics, and I think with the work that we've done with the Amplified Groups, of understanding the importance of clarity from the startups that we work with through to the FTSE 100 clients that we have, what has become very apparent is that lack of clarity can paralyse individuals in their roles, it can paralyse teams, it can form silos, it can stop people feeling like they're fulfilled in their role because they're not clear of what's expected of them. So there's there's lots and lots of different dynamics around clarity, and uh I'm really looking forward to getting into this topic, and I am delighted that that Paul is joining us for this.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Excellent, that's so makes sense. I I guess the fundamental point being that if people have clarity, they're all pulling in the right direction. This is not about micromanaging, is it? It's not not about getting down into the weeds and focusing on individual uh behaviour, it's it's providing direction and getting on with it. Um, so Paul, do you want to start maybe by giving us a bit of background on Glasswall and what the company's about, please?

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Sure. Um so Glasswall is a company of about 50 people, and perhaps the easiest way to describe Glasswall is to talk about how it got its name. So the founders of Glasswall were watching the news some years ago when the US government were under attack in their physical mail system where people were lacing mail with ricin or uh anthrax, and their answer for the US government was to put a lot of that mail into a sealed clean room, send somebody in with a biohazard suit, open the mail that was contaminated, put it up against a glass wall, have somebody photograph it from the other side, wow, print that out, put it in an envelope, and send it onto the recipient. And the Bright Sparks who set up Glasswall looked at that physical process and had the, I guess, the clarity to think we could do that digitally with email, and that's how the company was kind of uh born. Oh, okay, right, I get it. Digital deconstruction and reconstruction of email and leaving what are potentially dangerous uh components behind.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

It's almost creating a virtual virtual air gap between the original email and the and the new clean copy.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah, that's that's one way you could certainly describe it, absolutely. Okay, right, makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

I mean, Glasswall's a good name for a podcast of clarity, I suppose, isn't it? So pretty logical.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Absolutely, it's pretty appropriate, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

So as clarity is our topic, do you want to tell us why you think it's important, maybe?

SPEAKER_03 5:48

I mean, clarity, uh, although you you said early on there that clarity maybe is uh to do with a bit of thing, I think clarity is important from the micro to the macro level, and whether you've got somebody who is being very clear through managing, or whether it's right at the other end of the scale where as an organization you want to communicate externally in a clear way so you have the right engagement for your organization. Without doing that at every level, you cannot convert the initial ideas as a product manager, if you like, into that what is the business all about and how do you measure your success? So clarity appears at every level, as Vicky says, and you've got to make sure at every level you're getting the right level of clarity. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I was thinking of it in terms of internal clarity of direction, but actually clarity of external messages is really important. Maybe we could start with the internal and you you you give me some examples of um teams that you've worked with who needed clarity and how that's been provided, perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah, maybe I'll start. I said in my career I started off in technical support and I ended up in product management, and I I guess I only have clarity to blame for that because in my early days, part of what I was doing was relaying all these deficiencies in the products I was technically supporting, and a lot of those were going into the product management team to take action on. So you were being brutally clear. Uh I was being pretty clear about where the deficiencies were. So one day I got called into um the VPA product management's office, uh, expecting to get a bit of a kick-in for bothering his team, and he said, come work for me. Oh, brilliant. He saw value in that clarity, and I think that leads on to a lot of the teams I work with. The most uh limited resource uh within product management circles is usually your engineering team. So, unless you're absolutely crystal clear what you want out of that team, you are not making best use of resources to achieve the aim as a product manager of turning the idea into a revenue stream, if you like. So whether that's you know at the individual level, whether that's at the team level, or indeed at the business level in small businesses, because you're usually dealing with one product, that's what makes clarity important. It becomes more of an issue. I've worked in uh you know, uh organizations where you're trying to do that with international teams, and having the clarity across that team or in different time zones, um, and using many different communication mediums, you you have to take all those into account to get the right level of clarity. Increasingly, in the businesses that I've worked with, the the impact of the giga economy is coming to the fore as well, where that more and more of parts of what you do are outsourced, and again, interesting, crystal clear with each individual that you can contract for a number of hours exactly what you want in the context of the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah, because you're paying for it, so you you know you want to get your money done, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Absolutely, and and that those people want to be seen as successful as well, so they want to be clear about how success is measured when they only have a few hours committed to do something. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And the reality in the modern world today is that the volume of communication is just increasing and increasing, and that creates its own set of problems where you have to cut through all that to find what are those smaller points of clarity within this huge volume of communication.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Makes sense. And where have you where have you seen it at work? And also interestingly, where have you seen the opposite not work?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Well, I mean, I'll give you some examples. I'm gonna perhaps not mention some of the names. I mean, at one of the companies I worked with, we we we spent quite a bit of time talking to some of the larger enterprise customers, and based on what they told us, we saw the need or the opportunity to build an entire product. Um, we used quite a lot of precious engineering resources to do that. Uh, but when we released it, we hadn't spent the time to get the clarity with those customers as to what it would mean for them to adopt it, and they were very reluctant from the point of view of the risk to them of their information and where where it sat. Uh, and ultimately the product did not succeed. We had to kill it pretty quickly. So, clarity can have a big detrimental effect, um, not by being unclear, but by not seeking the right clarity in the right areas, you can set yourself up for failure. I mean, uh micromanagement is one of those things that's that's been mentioned. I mean, early on in my career, I I guess I worked with a micromanager and that was okay for me. Later on, I came across another one, um, but that wasn't as good an experience for me. And I think as you grow, you need more of your ability to set your own clarity. Uh, and where people start pointing fingers at micromanagers is where their they feel their ability to set their own clarity exceeds what their manager is willing to give. So that makes a constantly moving boundary that you have to keep looking at. Um, you know, I and my CEO is almost at the opposite end where he gives me a lot of free reign, but I'm still having to go back all the time and seek that clarity on what I plan to do, or he's just make sure it aligns with the overall goals. So a lot of it is in those personal relationships. From a team point of view, as I said, you've got to figure out what's the medium and how much communication do teams want because they operate the same way. Um, you know, the the classic adage in product management circles is product managers are about the what, so they need to be clear on what they want as the end result. The engineering teams need to be clear on how they're going to achieve that and how long it's going to take. So you've got to find those areas of clarity and who's responsible for what. That makes sense. Vicky, have you got anything to add at that point?

Vic 11:56

Paul just sparked something. So when when we when we talk about clarity, different people need different levels of clarity. So one of the organizations we worked with, we worked with a leader who thought he was giving the team enough clarity because it was enough for him. But the team needed to have more clarity. And actually, if you think about the first session that we did where we talked about disc, um some people different different personality personality types and styles.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah.

Vic 12:28

Absolutely. So, you know, you've got someone that's a big picture that doesn't need as much clarity, and then you've got someone that needs more detail, and and that was something that was really holding this particular team back. And actually, what they found worked really well was putting somebody into the team that almost could do the translation between the two. And and Sha and I have have it um quite often where I think there's enough clarity, and Sha comes back to me because she needs more detail, she needs more clarity because she's looking for that. I don't know, Sha, if you want to add anything to that.

Sia 13:04

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Vicky. It's um it's it's it very much lends itself to that personality type we talked about. You know, I like to know exactly how we're gonna get to the end result, and I need the steps to get there, and I need that clarity. And and so having that discussion with you, I often do come back and say, let's be clear, did we agree this? And then you're like, Yeah, of course we did, but no, I need I need to reinforce black and white. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, kind of.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah. So again, it's about building teams that have people with different styles to create that that diversity. It's also about knowing when to slightly moderate your own behaviour and your own approach to fit in well with those around you.

Vic 13:46

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

So going back to Paul, how how do you think clarity relates to uh communication in the broader organization?

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Um like I say, the one of the challenges with communication within broader organizations is there's just more and more and more of it. I mean, company I work in right now uses Slack extensively, and it's gotten to the point where we have so many channels that it's noise. And ironically, the upside of that has been important communication often goes back in email now, and there isn't much in email, so it's very clearly something important if it gets sent to you in email. Um, so I think some of those communication mediums and how you use them and how you guide your organization to take information uh and treat it with uh as background or as a clear direction for something is an important factor. Um and you know, to the point that Vicky and Sharon were talking about, um every team I've worked with, you're absolutely right. We we know most teams are made up of individuals with different disc profiles, and each of them needs a different level of clarity. So, what you've got to make sure is when you communicate that, that you give people an opportunity to seek any additional clarity they might need. So having an organization where people can question everything to the degree of satisfaction and then get behind whatever the outcome is and get on is is hugely important in businesses that are successful.

Vic 15:30

That's it's a great point that you make there, Paul. And actually, we use that um when we're coaching, in that if someone isn't clear what's expected of them, they need to go and ask. And if they're not getting that definition or clarity from their leader, they need to write it down, take it to their leader, and then they've at least got some discussion points because a lot, you know, we we say one of the things that we want to do with this podcast is talk about being fulfilled in your role. Well, you need to know what's expected of you, and you need to have that clarity. And if you haven't got that clarity, go and ask for it, go and find out, define it yourself, and then get that signed off versus expecting it to come your way. Because certainly a lot of senior leaders aren't given that.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

No, uh, but senior leaders are expected to provide their own definition more often than not, but it's still incumbent on them to check with their box.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yeah, make sure their vision fits in with the overall.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah, but I mean, I I've lost count of the number of times I I've said to people in organizations to go grab um a book by Marcus Buckingham called First Break All the Rules, which talks about management. And there's a page in there where he lays out about a dozen things that you should expect from your manager when you are in an organization. I think it's just a hugely powerful thing to give people to say you need to go seek these things, and if you're just giving them to you, great. But if he's not or she's not, then go find these things out because that's what will keep you satisfied in your role. Sounds well worth a read, that one. I'll I'll look it up. I mean, I I always tell people just to read that page, it's about 30 or 40 pages into the book. I mean, the book is great, but that page is that page is is is critical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Talking of that sort of thing, you're clearly you're familiar with uh uh Patrick Lencioni and the five behaviors model. You you've used that in your work?

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah, in fact, I've had Vicky and Sharon in, as Sharon mentioned, and we did some work with a couple of the engineering teams within Glasswall trying to improve the you know the trust and the communication generally, um, so that we could increase the productiveness of the engineering teams.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And do you want to give us some uh feedback on how maybe how that worked? And we were you pleased with with what followed?

SPEAKER_03 17:57

So the observations early on was that I I wasn't sure there was quite enough trust in one team, and in the other team there was a lot of trust, but there wasn't enough conflict to drive to a clear set of commitments. So we had two separate teams, we dealt with them differently, and it was great to have separate workshops for them and look at the individual issues for the team and get them involved and engaged, get the communication flowing, so that ultimately what we're after is that top of the pyramid, the accountability and the results, but they don't come unless you build those foundations in having that trust to you know be open about your communication, drive um you know, a deep conversation about any points of conflict, and then get committed to what everybody agrees. So it's absolutely important, and I think it did help those teams become more effective. Fantastic, makes a lot of sense.

Vic 18:51

Again, coming back to the importance of clarity. So, you know, it was it was great to be able to work with Paul's engineering teams, and what we find is a common theme, and actually the the assessments that we run, there is an index again to that. I think there's half a million people that have taken these assessments now, and accountability is always the one that that scores the lowest, even on really strong teams. People find it really hard to hold each other accountable, so it's not accountability to your manager, it's accountability to each other. What that generally stems from is lack of clarity. So if people aren't able to understand, if they don't know what's expected of them or or of their peers, then they can't hold them accountable. And a really, really simple example that I give is the very first workshop we ran, I suggested to the delegates that were that were coming on to that that they should read the five behaviors book. Note the word I said suggested. I didn't say this book to be read, it wasn't I was not clear about it. I just hoped that they would, and you know, we all know hope is not a strategy. But because I wasn't clear about it, when they turned up at the workshop and I said, Have you read the book? Well, they hadn't. But could I hold them accountable? Not at all. So that clarity piece, although it comes under the commitment, and very often organizations feel like they're committed. If they haven't got that clarity, then they can't do the accountability piece, which I think is something that we experience with with the vast majority of teams that we work with.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

I wonder what percentage of them would have read the book had you mandated it. Well, I could certainly have held them accountable and given them a hard time, which I yeah, which you're very, very good at, as I'm sure Paul can attest from your past careers together. Um so, Paul, any final takeaways? Any any key thoughts on clarity in business success for our our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yeah, look, think about clarity in if you like three levels. Um individuals need clarity. You need to seek that from your manager or you define it and get your manager bought into that. It's also important to make sure that you communicate that beyond just that you and your manager, that so that everybody else understands clearly what you are doing and what you're not doing. The clarity across teams internally makes them more effective. So getting teams bought into a common uh objective gets to that accountability results uh point on the uh the five behaviors model. And never ever forget that unless you are externally clear about what you are doing and what your organization is doing, the objective here for almost all organizations is to attract some kind of customer or external engagement. So you have to be crystal clear at that level as well if you want your organization to be successful. So I look at it as those three tiers of quality at the individual level, at the internal team level, and Externally being clear about communication beyond the borders of your organization.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Nice to have a clear way of looking at clarity. Thank you for that. So, Vicky, have Amplified Group got any tools to help organizations get started on this journey, perhaps?

Vic 22:16

Yes, um, thank you for asking. We have, in fact, we've created an alignment assessment, and it's interesting that Paul, you know, take talks about those three levels. And you know, something that we haven't touched on is if you don't have clarity at the organisational level, this is quite often why silos form, and you have different teams working on different things, and they don't and that they could can potentially conflict because there isn't that clarity on the level above about what you know, they don't understand what their priority is and how each can can play play their part with that. And so often we see teams who are almost in conflict with each other because they don't know and they're not clear on the general direction of the business and what the priority is, and they they're holding each other back. So so we have created an alignment assessment, and the alignment assessment looks at three areas, it looks at purpose. So, what is what is the purpose? What is your why? You know, if you go back to what we were talking about on an earlier podcast with Simon Sinnoh, so the the purpose piece, then the middle piece of the assessment is all about clarity, and then if you think of it as a triangle, the the bottom of the triangle is about trust and about being able to have that robust debate that that Paul was talking about with one of the teams that that we worked with there. So that alignment assessment, we are providing as a tool to support these podcasts that we're doing. So we're going to make it available as part of the show notes. Um brilliant. We're gonna make it available for people to for a very reasonable fee, of course. Um actually we're gonna we're gonna do it for free um to support these podcasts. Um because we think it's we think it's really important. So it gives a a high-level view and just enables people to or start a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Started on the journey, yeah.

Vic 24:19

Yeah, and you know, a a lot of you know, Microsoft talk about the five behaviors assessment as turning opinion into fact, and this is just a start. So it's a it's an anonymous survey that you can give out to your team and just get people's opinions back in such a way that you can measure it and start the conversation. And and you know, what we said way back about making bringing subconscious stuff to the conscious. Well, yeah, this this is a tool to help organizations do that. Sure, have you got anything you want to add to that?

Sia 24:53

Well, yes, of course. Being the structured one, I'm going to explain how it actually works, right? No, I was just gonna I was just gonna add that um yeah, we are giving away for free at the moment because we really feel strongly that this is a tool that will help turn that opinion into fact. And you literally all you have to do is bring your teams together, give us the details of your teams, but we will also give you something which is important, which is an output to that. So once you've taken the survey, we actually are going to provide a very um brief but very direct report from that that will tell you where you stand within purpose, clarity, and trust. So you've actually got that on paper, and you can take that to your team and have a conversation because it's about having a conversation, right? And so taking that to your team or taking that to your manager and to be able to be clear look, this is the actual status of the team as we stand in these three areas. Um so that's what uh the report would do for you. So I just wanted to throw that in there.

Vic 25:55

You I can see you wanted to do that, and you did it so much clearer, providing much more clarity than me. So thank you. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Fantastic. Well, listeners, you heard it here first. Free free tool to get started. Um where can where can people find this stuff? This is in the show notes, right?

Sia 26:14

Yeah, it'll be in the show notes, and uh it'll be sitting on our website, amplifygroup.eu. Um, but we'll uh we'll make sure it's very clear how they can obtain it.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Well, Shah, I think it's hero time.

Sia 26:26

It's hero time, raha. So um, Paul, you won't know about this segment, but I'm gonna throw it at you. So we have a segment um on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Nothing like preparing, I guess.

Sia 26:37

Nothing like preparing. Why would we do such a thing, right? So we have a segment called the hero segment, and um, it was born from the fact that at the Amplified Group we have a brand and we have a stick man, and that stick man is called Hero. And so we thought it would be really fun if we asked our guests at the end of the podcast who their hero is. Now, it might be a very difficult thing to do for some people, you know, they've got many heroes. Uh, it's about just telling us who is your maybe inspiration in your career, or who is somebody that you model yourself on, or just you know, a fun thing as well. But uh it's a nice way to kind of get into your psyche pool. So come on, tell us who's your hero.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

Oh, so many, so many to choose from for lots of different reasons. But you know, I I said at the start of this, I was talking about my career as a product manager, and essentially the job of product managers uh is to turn ideas into revenue streams uh for organizations, and I guess you know, when I think back, a lot of the heroes are the people that drive that. So I'm gonna pick a couple of people on this call as the heroes who have the courage, Vicki and Sharon, to take your idea and turn it into a business and a revenue stream. And I think that is just great. Like you're really enjoying it. So you're my heroes today, Vicki and Sharon.

Sia 27:58

Well, but right back at you then, Paul, because we put you on the spot, and now you've just put us on the spot. So thank you very much. Much appreciated. Not often I'm speechless.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Definitely not often. Wow, what what a magnificent end to a podcast. I've almost got a little tear in my eye. Fantastic stuff. Thank you, Paul. That was really interesting. I wasn't expecting somebody to provide so much clarity on the subject of clarity, but that was absolutely magnificent. So, after such a magnificent end to a podcast, I'm sorry to say that this is the end of season one. We hope you enjoyed it. Any feedback would of course be gratefully received. We'll be back in the autumn with season two. We've already got some great guests lined up on the subject of extraordinary teams. Look after your people and yourselves, and we'll see you in the autumn. Boom. Mic drop.