E3 | Leading Teams | Martin Denzel

Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset, a podcast where every conversation sparks new ideas on how the best leaders unlock their followers potential. I am Dr Damian Goldberg, and I am here to inspire you to become the best leader you can be be sure you subscribe and rate us. Let's jump right in. Hi. This is Dr Damian Goldberg, and I am your host. In our episode today, we are going to explore the importance for leaders to develop team coaching skills when we are leading with a coaching mindset, we know that instead of giving answers, we bring people together so they can come up with their best possible ideas. So a team leader needs to understand that for the team to be effective, it not only is a role model in terms of the behaviors that displays, but also the leader needs to create safety so participants may feel respected, supported and valued. One of the key elements of team leadership is the ability to bring clear alignment. What are the goals? What is the vision that the leader has? So people can be inspired by that and collaborate towards that. When that vision, what the goals are clear, and the participants are inspired by them, they are going to bring the best to contribute, but they need to know that the leader also has their interest in mind. So one key element of team coaching is the ability of the leader to align what is important to the organizations, to the team, to the participants. Another key element is building trust, to create psychological safety, or the sense that it's safe to be ourself and share our thoughts without fear of being judged. That is created by having clear ground rules, clarifying what people need, clarifying what are the expectations in terms of what people need to be affecting working together, and also by stating in advance how they are going to be managing differences, it is normal for collaborators in team to have different opinions, different ways of looking at the issue, different way of solving the issues. And it's important that people feel respected, valued, but at the same time, they may share ideas that may not be popular or not be what most people think, and that is a reason why it's so important that everybody participates so they can avoid group think. Group think is when everybody agrees to something without being completely committed, just to be part of the team, just to feel they belong, even though they may not agree. And then at the end, many people may end doing things that they don't agree just to conform, but not necessarily because they think they are the best ideas. Finally, an effective team coach, not only is effective at clearly aligning the team to the organization, to the vision, to the goals, by creating trust, psychological safety and also being effective at facilitating, being aware of the people who are silent, being sure that everybody is engaged, being sure that the leader is listening, not only what is said, What is not said, and pay attention to subgroups and maybe the elephant in the room, what people are not discussing. So bringing this to conversation. So these are some of the key elements that we want to pay attention when we are thinking about how to be an effective team coach. And today we have with us. Martin Denzel, who was a manager, a leader at Altos, we had an opportunity to work together, and we did some team coaching together, and he was a very effective leader and team coach, and that the reason why I invited him to join us today, so he can share with us some of his experiences. Let's welcome Martin Denso. Today we have with us Martin dansel, who is a previous client. We used to work together. He's a leader that I admire, and that's the reason why I asked him to be part of our podcast today. We worked together when he was a leader at altos. He's a scientist. He lead a team of scientists and researchers in the lab. We worked together for a couple of years, at least almost three years, if I am not wrong, and I could see how you grow and develop as an amazing leader. Today, we are talking about leading teams. And what do you think are the key elements, or the key variables that leaders who are listening to us need to pay attention to be effective when they are leading teams. So welcome Martin to our podcast, do you want to share briefly about your team, what you were doing, and what do you think were some key elements that make you so successful working with your team?

What you're saying is very common for leaders in different professions. In your case, you are a scientist who became a leader. But many people in different industries, they are very effective about they do. And many times, the next step is to become a leader. But being a great scientist or accountant or lawyer or psychologist doesn't make you automatically a good leader, because, as you're saying, the skills that are required are different. And you also say something that it's important is asking for help. It's like you have a team of colleagues who support each other. Many times, the leadership roles can be isolated and can be lonely, and I found over the year that many leaders who do not have a lot of experience, instead of looking for the help and support, they're trying to make it look that they know what they are doing. But there is a part of them that they know that they need the help, but they don't look for it.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And honestly, it's probably a similar thing, a similar, probably sort of psychological mechanism that needs to be applied, which people already kind of know, because they've become good in another field, right? And they became good in that field by growing and learning and getting feedback and making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, and one jumps in this leadership role, it has to be probably looked at in a very similar way, right? You are a beginner again, and it feels very much like a beginner, even if you're able to make it look like you're very comfortable in it, probably or not, and so the approach that probably has made people successful in the abstract is something one can apply here, right? You have to be aware that you need to learn.

Now, you said something about trust, the importance of trust, and I agree with you, that is a foundation of effective teams. When you do not have that trust, it's much more challenging for participants to really engage and committed and doing their best. So trust is something that you need to build and cultivate ongoing in order once you have trust done, it's like all. The time, you need to keep paying attention to how you build that trust. And I know that currently you're working in building a new team too. So what are the thing that you pay attention when you're hiring new people? Because in your case, you had the opportunity to bring the people to the team, to choose them. Now you do have the opportunity again. Sometimes people don't have that opportunity. Sometimes people inherit teams that may be dysfunctional where they did not trust. So what would you say about how you create that? Because I think you were very effective also in maintaining that trust. Once that you you had the right people in the team.

Let me answer it in two ways, right, one for building and one for leading, sort of an established team. So for building one, I think it's important that one knows where the direction of travel goes. So what does my team need to look like when it's complete, right? So how would I then, once successful, look back at these various hiring decisions and not always hiring say, the academically most accomplished person might be the right choice, right because you have to make sure that the team kind of clicks. It's like a puzzle piece as you build out. You can then also rely on this growing team to help you with those decisions. So I had hiring decision once where I was pretty sure that I was very much in favor of one candidate, but then my team actually pushed back pretty heavily. So when we did hiring, we always did it together, right? I really shared the work and shared the burden in a way with the team, and they really pushed me to give a particular other candidate a chance. And so we invited him again and had another conversation, and ultimately he was the one hired. So I really had to thank my team for sort of nudging me in the right direction, and we haven't regretted it for a second. Quite the opposite, this person has become a superstar. So sharing that is really important, and that does many things right, because it makes it shows that people's opinions matter. You value the team functionality as a whole, and you have a lot more smart people to rely on than just yourself. Plus the people you hire into the team are much more exposed to the other team members than to you most of the time, right? So they have to work directly together. So making sure that that works is really important, right? I think those are, there are many bits of that. For the other part, when you said, what if you inherit the team that might be dysfunctional? That sounds like a complete nightmare to me, and I would probably take radical steps to change that, even towards letting people go, because I think that once trust is broken, and then you're trying to kind of build trust amongst the team, get them to trust you. And I think that might be a really terrible uphill battle.

Martin, particularly, people are not willing to take a risk and trust you, or they are not willing to have a different perspective or intention or attitude. Yeah, sometimes this is one of the challenges for leaders, is letting go people when they have to, and as a result of that, just for not doing that uncomfortable job, and there are consequences,

yes, and that is a real hard part in leading the team, is because you want to have a positive atmosphere within the team all the time, but then if somebody kind of doesn't permit that, or works against that, it's up to you to react to that. And I had to learn that the hard way. Learned that it is sometimes better for the entirety of the team to let an individual go, who's not helping the team be productive, who's sort of, you know, damaging the atmosphere.

Yeah. So this is a really good point, how we pay attention to the whole team, not just one person, and how we keep that balance between meeting the needs of the different individuals and the whole team and also looking about the organization too, where the team lives. What is the also the bigger picture about how behavior from participant from the team may affect negatively the team and the organization. So paying attention to that. Now going to a from a positive note, we're talking about CO creating, and I think that one of the elements of successfully leading a team is CO creating with a team, from goals to what you're talking about, hiring people, what else did you co created with your team? Maybe more pay more attention to co create with the team members.

I'm tempted to say almost everything, I think that what's important for the leadership personality is to make sure. Everybody understands the principles. So, you know, what are we here for? What are we about? You know, what's our own aspiration for quality and output that is really important, because you can then utilize that as a means to give feedback right? To say, Hey guys, I think we want to have better goals. We have higher aspirations than where we at at a certain moment. So you kind of set the tone right. But then once that is done, there are actually most things where the team should and can play a role, and it honestly makes your own job a lot easier. You don't have to do everything yourself, right? And Damien, you were one of the people who told me you talked to your team about that, or have you utilized your team for those things? This goes for many things, like how we had, you know, scientific discussions, right? The feedback culture within the team is, is super important, and the feedback that individuals get from other team members is as important, or better, sometimes, than the feedback that I give. So the sort of scientific the work progress that is where that that occurs. But even to planning activities, or working out projects, all of those things can be done together. And I think it always, it's always a good thing to see that happen, because you give people an opportunity to get involved, to shine. And I think the outcome is mostly better. And of course, that you get buy in. So once people have invested themselves into something, you know, it's likely they believe in it, and they're likely to be really fully behind it.

I had the opportunity to work with your team, and I was very impressed with the level of engagement. What else do you think as a leader, you may have done to make this team such a high performing team. So you co created, you engage people in decision making. As a result of that, they were pretty engaged and they were doing 100% of themselves were very committed. What else do you think that you have then as a leader to support that

one additional piece that's maybe worth mentioning here is how, as a leader, you set yourself rules around how you treat people, which means, how do you treat everybody fairly? Right? How do you make sure that everybody has the fair and fair treatment I did in the beginning, and I made mistakes in that by trying to treat everybody equally. So, you know, give everybody the same amount of time, give everybody the same pay, be completely equal. And I think that is not the best way of creating a team optimally, or to actually pick up everybody from where they are, because everybody's different, right? So you have to treat people fairly in the way that you you need to give them what they need, right? Some people need, you know, a lot of hand holding. Some people need a lot of attention. Some people need a lot of distance and a lot of leeway, right? So by treating people, so just with this example of how much time you spend with a person, right? You can spend two hours a week with a certain person, and that that might not be enough, because they need this very big attention, you know, lots of detail in the discussions, and that might not be sufficient. And then there are other people who feel already smothered if you ask them for half an hour every week, because they just want to do their own thing, so do I treat them equally? No, no, no, you can't, right? You should treat them the way that sort of aligns with their character, and where you think you can set those individuals optimally for their own success. That was a very interesting thing to see, and I think that sort of applies in very many contexts, and sometimes that will be hard then to explain to people, when they put you on the spot and are like, you know, but you're spending so much more time with Person X than with me, and that's an important thing, and to be able to have a good, principled behavior here is and be able to explain that to people, that's important. But I think I strongly believe in that now,

and I believe Martin that that is related to the premise of the book. Lead with a coaching mindset that different people need different things. So to coach them, you need to understand them, and you need to understand what they need, and you cannot offer everybody the same so you need to be you need to identify exactly what you're saying, what what they need, and offer that to them, and particularly Martin Dawn, to not to believe that what we need, what they need, for sure, anytime we think that what we want, what we need, other people want and need, and maybe very different. So it's like being curious and a key element, what I'm hearing is about building the relationships based on understanding what people

need. Yeah, it's a trial and error too, because with every person, it's different. So you have to kind of, you know, feel your way and learn, get to know each other, right, to to know how to best do that. Yeah.

Martin, any last thoughts before we go, anything that you can any message for the leaders who are listening to us today, when you're working with a team, you want to co create. You want to treat people based on their unique needs. Anything else that you can think of before we go? Well,

I mean, just maybe going back, closing the loop from the very beginning. I think that building a team and being a team leader was something that was somewhat implicit when I started right, because, you like, I said, one qualifies oneself with a certain doing certain job, and then one jumps into the other. And I didn't think much about that sort of, you know, the learning, the leadership part, until I had to, right? But I have to say that getting good at that, like becoming sort of an engineer of this sort of leadership, can lead to wonderful experiences and really great feelings of Team accomplishment and pride and so ultimately, a lot of fun. So one should probably consider it from that angle too, right? You try to get reasonably good at something, and you continuously grow. And when you see a team function, it's a very good thing. It's a very good feeling.

Amazing. Thank you very much for joining us today. I hope that you can come back in the future to continue the conversation, my pleasure and I wish you good luck in your new projects. Thank you soon. Okay, take care, and that's a wrap up for today's LEAD with a coaching mindset. I am Damien Goldberg, thrilled to have shared this time with you. Don't forget to subscribe and give us a rating. Stay excited for more episodes, take care and keep living with a coaching mindset. You.