00:09

This is Sarah, your host for today. And I have Dr. Judith Cardenas here with me today as well. And we’re going to be taking a deeper dive into a recent webinar that we had titled, Learn How to Build a High-Performing Innovative Team During Challenging Times. So thank you so much for joining me today, Judith. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. And I’m just thrilled to be here and to share more insights and learn more with you.

00:36

Great, and so we’ve actually done this together before Judith and I, but for any new listeners that we have with us today, could you just share a little about who you are and how you got here, what you do, a little bit about your background to get people familiarized with you? Sure, so I own a small consulting firm, Call Strategies by Design, and we focus on helping organizations become more agile and innovative, especially in the midst of this changing world.  You know, we started off  as a leadership development company at the beginning,

01:05

then we quickly found that,  right before COVID,  that things were changing fast  and we just needed to shift a bit. So we’ve really been focusing on helping teams and leaders gather knowledge and how to design these high-performing teams as the world keeps changing and moving around us. Yeah. And so  this recent webinar we did together on building a high-performing team  during these challenging times.

01:33

For anybody who  didn’t attend the session,  the webinar session with us, and a recap for those that did, can you just let us know what were the key takeaways for the registrants at that event?  So I think the key takeaways is based not only in our research and the studies we’ve been doing, but  with the number of years that we’ve been working with teams is that we’ve seen a shift that we have seen organizations do one and done, kind of building their teams. And we were recognizing that

02:03

Teams were dynamic. They were very human-centric. And we found that those organizations who focused on strength-based team design tend to  outperform those that weren’t. So one of the key takeaways that we had is, you know, having a human-centered design approach to team design, focusing on everyone’s strengths, not trying to find a coach or program to help fill a gap, because  sometimes you can’t make someone something they’re not.

02:33

And I think the most  challenging.  Item that we keep running into is that how much culture influences people, their behaviors or actions or motivators, and oftentimes is that culture element that often gets missed.  And I think the last takeaway I would say is that we all aren’t just one thing. We’re just not our personality, but we’re our energy and we’re are. We’re motivated differently. We are rewarded differently. We tend to.

03:02

value different things. And so for leaders to understand themselves and the diversity of their teams, we believe that’s really key in designing a high performing team. Yeah. And everyone on a team, you know, brings their own unique perspective and even change itself can be difficult for team members. It is. mean, yesterday I just redid an assessment. I won’t say what it is. And I, you know, I could see the shift that I’ve even had just as I’m reading my company or my

03:32

leading the team versus when I was working inside an organization that was just churning all the time. My personality was different. I expressed different behaviors in different ways. But there’s some beauty in that. You just kind of need to help the leader find that beauty  in that space. Yeah. And so what changes do you see happening that are in the L &D space right now? A lot. We see a lot of changes with artificial intelligence popping up.

03:59

I think everyone has heard about chat GPT and this enormous uptake  of  having a one AI element system that will give people some  instant feedback or data that they can actually use to shift how they approach work.  We’re seeing learners change.  We’re seeing learners more comfortable with small bits of micro learning than they are with a PowerPoint slide deck. We see learners wanting

04:29

just in time information. So how do we get that in front of the learner fast enough before a session, after a session to cement that learning?  And we’re seeing a lot of shifts  on helping teams and leaders work with technology. So I think those are the main  shifts we’re seeing. It’s a lot and it’s happening very, very fast. Yeah, and I’m sure it’s having a major effect on the market. And are you seeing that?

04:55

Yes, we’re seeing  some interesting data come out from different  organizations.  after the pandemic, we did see organizations who were just struggling to find people to begin with. And now the question on the table is, we automate? And if we automate, how does that work? And if we automate, that displace a worker?  And  if we automate, how does a worker work with the technology in a different way to optimize the business process?

05:24

So we’re seeing lots of changes  just from a business perspective. From an L &D perspective, what compounds the issue or the challenge is that talent is tight. You wanna optimize your talent and we see people not staying inside organizations for a long time. So it’s  what can we do to  encourage them, to build them up,  to help them build each other and the organization.

05:50

Yeah, we’re seeing lots of change. It’s just, and as I said before, it’s just happening so fast.  The goal is to try to stay ahead of it. So. And with all of these changes and things that are happening,  what exciting things are you up to next? So we are launching a number of very cool micro learning programs  around GPT and how do you, how do you use it? How do you maximize it? And a whole series of AI courses that are really there to democratize AI.

06:20

think what we’re finding is that people use the term AI pretty loosely, but they don’t know exactly what it is and what it can and cannot do and when you should use it and when maybe you shouldn’t use it. So we have an entire series, an AI series for leaders that’s going to be launched out. And we’re also helping organizations and teams in particular work around a customer journey.

06:46

and a experienced journey to understand where AI could really optimize that customer experience.  So we’re very excited. The AI space is growing very, very fast. There’s not something new that we don’t learn on a daily basis, but we’re trying to walk the walk and talk the talk and use AI inside our business as well as on our business and with our business offerings. So those are the exciting, and we’re very excited about it. Yeah.

07:12

I’m sure like a big question for people is, you know, what opportunities come with AI, but also the concerns and maybe some ethical challenges  that come along with that as well. There’s tons of ethical challenges that, and legal and regulatory and compliance challenges when you really think about it. First, there’s like the normal challenge of the way of work is shifting, which is a very different bias that someone like walks in and says, that’s not how I do my job. That’s not how the job is done. And now you’re seeing a

07:42

a robot or some kind of AI element doing it for you. So that’s one shift. But we do have lots of deep discussions with organizations who are worried about privacy, data privacy,  who owns my data, how’s it going to be used, am I tracked?  As well as if the AI element is not designed from a human centered approach,  can it manipulate? Can it manipulate someone or something? are there internal biases already built into the

08:12

the AI element itself. So we’re seeing, as you can imagine, lawsuits and we’re seeing big discussions about the ethical implications of AI.  We’re seeing them all around the world. So the UK is probably in the  midst by the time this gets broadcast out of actually passing an AI Act so that companies who actually use AI have to follow certain criteria to ensure you and I that our privacy is safe.

08:41

that our data is safe somewhere. And for those of us who may think, oh, that’s across the pond, that’s on the other side of the water. So many companies work with organizations across the pond and across the water. And so it’s really important to understand what regulations they have to follow because it will impact or implement or impact us. And then we’re seeing certain states, so interesting, California, for example,

09:11

is passing AI laws, asking organizations to put specific privacy language on their websites. And if you’re going to collect data, what are you going to use it for? And  not only cookies, but you’re like, where is my data going? And can I opt out if I need to opt out?  lots of, I think, concerns and churns, but I think there’s also lots of opportunities for us as we’re leading organizations and teams. Yeah.

09:40

And then just kind of bringing this back in to the webinar a little bit.  We compiled the top comments and questions that we had from the audience. So we can  kind of dive a little bit deeper in into that, that we weren’t able to touch on as much during our webinar that we had. So the first question here is why is culture so important? So the way I like to describe culture to leaders is that culture is

10:09

For me, it’s like a fabric. And when the fabric is worn or torn  or is ready to, know, the  threads of the material is ready to just break off, it doesn’t have the capacity to really continue to grow and sustain that growth.  Culture is interesting.  I’ve often asked myself, am I walking into a culture or does the culture impact and influence me?

10:35

And it’s still a question I still struggle with as a professional and  coaching individuals. But I think culture is important, but I would say culture needs is changing. And with that, it’s like, how do you design a new culture now that embeds both technology and people? Like that’s a different kind of culture.  We’ve really talked about it here. So I think culture is really, really important. We know people can tell me when it’s a toxic culture. People can tell me when.

11:04

They’re burned out. People can tell me when  it’s hierarchical and it’s low.  But very few people can describe to me what a good culture looks like, which is really, really interesting. So we think culture is king. We think culture does eat strategy for breakfast. I believe that was someone’s quote out there. And we do believe that culture is really not only about a feeling, but it’s really about how the organization operates and how they respect the employees.

11:34

and the people that they serve. So I think it’s pretty important. I think it’s a topic that I don’t think one workshop, type of cultural workshops would really fix anything. But I do think that as we find people who are leading new teams or they’re being hired at a higher level or they even start their own companies, we often like to have the culture conversation. What kind of culture do you want to create? How are you going to create it? And how do you not get almost

12:02

sucked back into the old habits of the organization. So we recently worked with a team who had a brand new team member. He had been there two weeks. He was so excited. And we did a culture assessment with the team and he was the outlier and he couldn’t figure out why he was the outlier. So our goal is to redo the assessment in the next month or so to see if he stays the outlier. He’s new, he’s fresh, he has bright ideas, he’s so energetic.

12:32

where he  shifts to the exact culture of the team. So we don’t know if he’s gonna influence the team or the team will influence him. So I’ll let you know when we find that. That’s the sound.  Yeah. Yeah. And it’s so easy too to fall back into our old habits and, you know, to really make that change in your culture when it’s needed. It is. mean, let’s face it, we’re human beings. We don’t like change. Our brain isn’t really

13:01

structured for change our brain is structured to protect ourselves to keep ourselves safe  and change feels uneasy and especially change in uncertain times feels even scarier so yeah, we fall back into the old habits the old ways old reactions and Those those habits are hard to change, but we believe we have we can influence them And what about your approach? How does your approach to high-performing teams differ?

13:30

We do a couple of different things that we believe is quite different. We look at things from a team approach versus an individual approach.  So I would say the first four or five years of our company, we were hired to do individual coaching. I need an executive coach. I have a new leader, they need a coach. And we would coach them and they would talk about their teams  to us all the time. But we never worked with their teams. We never coached the teams as cohesive.

14:00

that we can coach together.  We provide assessment tools that give everyone the  how and where, what motivates a person, but that they can understand the language that they need to use and how they need to communicate with each individual member. We also measure people’s energy. It’s amazing  to find teams where I have to go back to the CEO and I said,

14:28

Did you hire yourself 10 times because y’all have the exact same personality, same behaviors, same motivators and same energy. And she was like, wow, no one ever asked me that. now that I think about it, we are almost like all the same.  So  I think energy is really important as we’re starting to bring in a newer, younger generation into the workplace.  Their energy is different. They get

14:56

They do work differently. And I think we saw this when we had a lot of remote workers during COVID and people were just like, I need to see the person. I don’t know what they’re doing. There was a lot of trust issues that came about  and, you know, so someone could do work at 2 a.m. and get it done and others, you know, how do you keep this, you nine to five kind of job? So we do measure energy, we measure motivators,  we measure culture as it relates to each individual.

15:24

how they see themselves fitting into the culture and how they influence the culture. And we do that for a longer period of time. So our goal is not to do a one and done type of workshop. Our goal is really to understand the dynamics of the culture and then to shift and coach them in a way that helps them build on their strengths and understand, oh, maybe today I need Sarah because Sarah’s the innovator on our team, but she doesn’t work on my immediate team, she works on another team.

15:54

So maybe it’s okay for me to like connect with hers because I need that skill set on this project. So we really try to teach them also how to break the barriers. Most organizations we work with are very siloed still. They work within their own little team. And oftentimes organizations cannot thrive in that way anymore. So we also focus on something we call sense making, where when there’s a challenge or a problem, we often have the team and the leader

16:24

I make sense out of it. Where’s the information? Who else has that information? Is there someone else experiencing the exact same thing two buildings over or the night shift versus the day shift or  are remote workers versus people who are in the office? How do you make sense of the challenges that you’re really seeing? And not necessarily  only with data, but with, you know, real stories that people can tell you in real time.

16:51

So we do try to implement some of the newer leadership elements around sense making,  team dynamics, and culture, know, creations.  That’s how we do it a little bit differently. And we do tend to spread, we do have two behavioral scientists on our team. So we do tend to spread some behavior science  aspects of why people don’t want to change.  Why change is hard, how you create a habit, you know, things. So that’s our approach to

17:21

And why do some initiatives fail faster than others when it comes to building teams? So we see a couple  of things. We do see that,  again, culture is hard to  change and people tend to naturally want to push away from that particular change. And we have seen, so we hear terms like fail fast. Well, what does that mean to fail fast? And it’s really like building that culture that’s psychologically safe.

17:50

You tried something that didn’t work, you’re not going to get reprimanded for that. So we see cultures more nimble  when they tend to embrace failure  as a piece of data. And when we see these teams also embrace speed almost  as just a normal way of working. And so I would say that’s not the norm that we find. So we find

18:18

Most of our companies who are either going through an ERP, there’s a new computer system coming down, there’s a new mandate from Congress that might be impacting how we do work. They don’t do well. They tend to have people who would say, that’s not the way we do it. We’ve been doing it this way, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s not only about size, it’s really about mindset. So teams, I think they have a more agile mindset, agile way of thinking, agile approaches.

18:48

tend to just move a bit faster and they bounce. They’re more resilient  and they tend to celebrate failures and successes, not just successes. So I think those  are our major elements. And when you walk into a team, you can feel it. They talk differently to each other, their energy’s different. They don’t even need to be in the same city. It’s just really interesting to watch. But they all have this laser focus of what the goal is.

19:16

but they all get to the goal in a different way and their leader allows them to do that. And I would, think when you walk into a team like that, you can feel it. So it’s just a, it’s an amazing experience. So I think you have, you work in a team like that. So you do. Your boss seems to be very supportive  and every team member I’ve met  in this organization, they, they’re focused on their goals, serving their clients and each other.

19:43

but there’s so much energy. Is that what you see? It is actually, you know, I think it’s a really great team that we have established here. You have  the freedom to have your opinions and, you know, get to see your thoughts and ideas really playing to action, which I think is really cool. I think that’s very cool. think  I would consider you all a high performing team. So you’re an example for us.  I think it’s, so yes. So I just, I love it. I love that energy.

20:11

The other thing I love about your team is you’re very diverse. Age-wise, background, the experience and expertise you bring in is all different. It doesn’t come from one space. So  I’m very impressed, I have to say. That’s a great compliment.  Congratulations. Oh, why thank you. And then, so what about, what is the number one facing, number one issue facing leaders as it relates to building high performing teams?

20:41

So I would tell you today my answer is different than what it was when I actually did the webinar. I would say today, the number one issue in building teams is how do you build them in this changing technology landscape?  You know, when we talked earlier a little bit about chat GPT and some of the AI apps, to think that there’s like 10 million users already of  a…

21:07

technology that wasn’t in existence a month ago after what I talked to you. So there’s something going on very rapidly.  And so for a leader to actually grasp and make sense of what’s going on and then create the right culture to allow their team to be what we call  digital dexterity, they  like the ability to try new technologies and try, they move forward towards technologies.

21:37

I actually grew up inside organizations where every time we were going to have a new tech tool, it was like, oh no,  this was not going to happen.  And so that kind of organization can’t survive anymore. So I think there’s a lot of challenges for CEOs and team leaders and new people who are getting into  the market space where the technology is moving so fast  that if you don’t work alongside of it.

22:06

you won’t survive. I don’t think it’ll take over your job, but I do think it’s going to ask and require a higher level of creativity and innovation and critical thinking than it did a year ago. And that’s scary to say a year ago because that’s just a very short period of time. I think those are probably the biggest challenges for them and biggest opportunities  at same time.

22:32

I think that’s so true when you put a new platform or technology or something in front of a company and then people panic. It’s like the resistance because it’s something new and different that it puts you out of your comfort zone. makes you uncomfortable. You have to learn something different. It does. And then you had that. I ran into somebody who I said, why did you retire? A young person actually. They’re like, oh, we’re going to have a new tech team.

22:59

Texas to put in and I just couldn’t go through it again. And I’m like, okay, she had gone through three, you know, in her career  and she was done. And so when you mix that technology shift, aging population, multiple generations in the workplace,  then organizations that just can’t even find people anymore, it’s like a perfect storm.  And so the goal is how do you find the beauty and the opportunity in that storm?

23:27

without it actually being daunting to you. And that’s not our easy task at all. But I would say it’s one that’s worth, it’s a journey worth traveling. It really is. Yeah. And then our last audience question today is how does this topic connect you to your focus on AI and innovation? So what we’re seeing is that you cannot have digital disruption or digital transformation without having people transformation.

23:58

And I think people go in and edit one or the other. So I’m either listening to a webinar on how to transform teams, or I’m listening to a webinar on how AI transform your workplace. And what I’m going to say is both have to happen at the same time. And so for us, it was a perfect match and a perfect fit. That you cannot have organizations to be innovative.

24:22

unless they understand how to embrace these new technologies, but also how to build up their own skillset and capabilities. We’re reading more and more that even the soft skills are actually going to change and how we define them. How you actually talk to a bot is just as important as how the bot responds back to you. But none of us were ever taught how to talk to a bot. I didn’t take that course in college. I don’t know, maybe you did, Sarah, but I did it.

24:52

lots of changes and shifts there. But  to us, it was a perfect blend, was a perfect timing for that. And we just, find the times so exciting. We don’t know, can’t even imagine what the future’s gonna be like.  We were reading the other day where, I can’t remember which company was,  I believe it was Australia. Yes, they use a drone to actually deliver your food when you order.  And I’m just like.

25:19

No, it just freaked me out at that time.  But it could. We have driverless cars and we’ve got things happening. So  I think everybody needs to stay in touch with HRDQ because things are coming in there. And that’s where the match is. It’s exciting for us. But we’re also seeing organizations really struggle by saying, not in my backyard, we’re not going to do this.  And we worry. We worry about

25:49

We worry about organizations.  Are we training people in the right way?  How did we upskill, side skill?  So many things are shifting. it just felt like it was a good connection for us. It didn’t feel like a big gap or a big jump or leap. But if we do focus on digital transformation, we really need to focus on people transformation. Can’t have one without the other.

26:15

Great,  and before we end our conversation today, Judith, where can people go learn more about your work? Sure, so you can come to our website at  www.stratusbydesigngroup.com or you can look me up on LinkedIn at Dr. Judith Cardenas.  Please feel free to connect with me there.  And we would just love to connect and keep the conversation going. Well, great.  Well, thanks to all of our listeners for joining in today.

26:44

and I look forward to having you join me next week  for our next podcast. Thanks everyone.