January 28, 2021 • 39 mins
In this episode of Cultivate your Culture, we are joined by Landon Gorbenko. Landon is the Director of Performance PowerUp Academy and GScience. He is also the host of the No Tilt Mind Podcast. He has a Masters in Performance Psychology and works as a Mental Performance Consultant with a wide range of amateur to professional esport athletes to improve their mental skills and overall performance.
Connect with Landon via Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
The host, Zoran Stojkovic believes that we are all born to flourish in work and life. Through his company, Kizo, he equips organizations and people with culture and mindset tools to reach full engagement through powerful workshops, memorable keynotes, and transformative individual consultations.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zoran Stojkovic (00:03):
Hello, I'm your host, Zoran Stojkovic and
welcome to cultivate yourculture. This podcast we'll be
discussing how leaders can buildconnected high performing teams
and business in sport usingactionable tools, evidence based
systems and simple processes.
Today we're joined by Landongore Benko, a really great
(00:25):
friend of mine and Landon Landonhas a quite an awesome
background. He has hisbachelor's in psychology, and
then a master's in performancepsychology. He's the director of
performance of powerup Academyand G science and works with a
wide range of amateur to proeSports athletes to improve
their mental skills and overallperformance, which includes team
(00:47):
culture and communication.
Landon, thank you for being onthe show. And welcome.
Landon Gorbenko (00:55):
You bet. I'm excited to be on here. I know
we're gonna have some goodconversation.
Zoran Stojkovic (00:58):
We are we are.
So maybe I'll start off byasking, What does cultivating
your culture mean to you in theesports world?
Landon Gorbenko (01:09):
Yeah, so cultivating your culture in an
esport world? Because foreverybody out there that's
listening, I primarily only workwith eSports. So that's why he's
asked about eSports specific?
It's a really good question.
Because right now, when you lookat almost any game, each game
kind of comes with a kind oflike its own culture, right. So
if you're working with a call ofduty team, if you're working
(01:30):
with the League of Legends team,or fortnight, squad, or whatever
it might be, the game itselfalmost comes with a culture. And
unfortunately, a lot of timesthose, those bits of culture are
very toxic. like Call of Duty,for example, it's got a
reasonably toxic and rage likeculture. So you got to, you got
to kind of find ways to remedythat. And so when I'm working
(01:52):
with the team, it's really aboutidentifying, like, what is
actually a beneficial thing likewhat what are we? What is the
current culture that your teamhas? That's toxic and holding
you back? Is it like,communication issues? Is it
value differences? Are you allpushing towards a different
goal, you really got to identifywhat kind of culture they
already have, that's kind ofharming them, and then establish
(02:14):
what would be a, a positive or ahelpful team culture. And in
eSports, it is a little bit it'speculiar in the sense that each
game like I was mentioning hasits own kind of inbuilt culture
just based on how the gamedeveloped. And so when you come
into each game, you kind of haveto understand what that the
default culture is there so thatyou can work on fixing that. And
(02:36):
it's, it's sometimes chaos,working with esport cultures,
for sure.
Zoran Stojkovic (02:41):
Yeah, neat. So you're saying each game kind of
has its own culture, much likecompanies would have their own
culture internally. And you'resaying that cultivating your
culture to you meansunderstanding? What are the
things that aren't going great.
So for example, if members inthe team are kind of going in
different directions, or havedifferent goals, different
values, and that are notaligning to each other's values
(03:03):
and team culture, and to the tothe values of the organization?
I guess that's where that's aplace you'd start and you start
some of those conversations. Sohow then how do you define team
culture? I mean, this is a termthat gets thrown around so
often. And there's a lot ofprofessionals that go into teams
do workshops, and all sorts ofthings. But I mean, how can we
actually define it? I mean,yeah, how do we make it
(03:26):
tangible?
Landon Gorbenko (03:28):
Yeah, I think that's a really good budget, how
do you define team culture,right? And either, for me, at
least just going off the top ofmy head, right with this
conversation, there's two, tworeally big things that we can be
looking at when we're looking atteam culture is one, what is the
team's purpose? And then numbertwo is how does the team
interact? Right? Like, I thinkthose are two really big
(03:49):
fundamental parts of teamculture. Because if you don't
know what your team's purposeis, like, is this a rec league?
Is it fun? Are we going for aworld championship? Are we going
for a regional champion? What isthe purpose of that team? If you
don't know that part, you don'treally know how to work
together, because everybody'sgoing off in their own
direction, doing their ownthing, and you're not really
functioning as a unit. And thenalso the other component of how
(04:11):
do we function together? So howdo we, how do we relay
information? How do we resolveconflict? What are our
strengths, weaknesses, likereally understanding how you
guys work as a unit? So I thinkteam culture, to me, at least in
my world, is kind of based offof those two things is the
purpose of the team and how doesthe team interact?
Zoran Stojkovic (04:30):
That's huge, right? Having that shared
purpose and having alignment onthat and getting buy in into it
even and then understanding thecommunication styles, how people
communicate how information isdisseminated. So why is that
important? Why is it importantto cultivate the culture of a
team and why not just have theseindividuals that are superstars?
Landon Gorbenko (04:48):
So again in eSports, one of the weird things
that doesn't happen intraditional sports is that
eSports I'm a competitor. I'm anathlete that's wanting to go pro
bulk of my my development spentin isolation, where what we do
is called soloqueue. Right?
Like, if I was doing League ofLegends, I'd queue up for games
by myself, I'd get paired withfour random teammates and
against five random teammates,because five on five. And I
(05:10):
really developed this sense oflike, not like an isolation,
identity kind of thing where I'mworking by myself, to get myself
to a certain point. And thenyou, when you finally make it to
the proceed, you are now in avery collective mindset, or
you're supposed to be raised tobe working alongside for other
people to create this reallycohesive five man squad, but
(05:32):
you're bringing into it, thisvery isolated kind of identity
where you've been, up until thispoint, you've been pushing your
own goals, your own strategies,your own plans. And so when you
get five people at all kind ofcome with come in with that kind
of mindset. And say, All right,now all five of you got to work
together, you got to solve this,they've never learned those
(05:53):
skills yet. So when things gowrong, it's everybody else's
fault, they tend to blameeverybody else, there's not a
whole lot of top tier conflictresolution, because up again, up
again, up until that point, it'sbeen very, like, I gotta do
this, I gotta do this, this isme, I have to wait, I have to do
this, you, it's all on yourself.
And this is why it's reallyimportant to esports, because
(06:16):
they, they've never had thatopportunity to work in the team.
And so you see a lot of cultureissues that way, because they've
just never learned how toresolve conflict, how to work
together towards one goal. Soeverybody's kind of pushing
towards their own goal. And thenyou get this big tension,
because everybody's going off onslightly different directions.
You got to we got to rein it inso that everybody's going
towards one unified vision.
Zoran Stojkovic (06:38):
Yeah, definitely all the noses have to
be pointed in the samedirection. And so what what I'm
understanding from what you'resaying is esport athletes
practice on their own throughsoloqueue, which is like a
mission, they get thrown in ontheir own with random opponents
and random teammates, who theydon't know. And they got a
really quickly improvise, andfigure out and adapt and be
(06:58):
flexible to win the game. Andthat reminds me of pickup
basketball. I mean, somebody wason a basketball team can go and
there's this great culture ofpickup basketball in Europe and
in parts of the states, andwhere people just go in and they
play a pickup game of basketballpeople they don't really know,
or people they might have bumpedinto before. And then what
(07:19):
they're doing there is they'reautomatically they got to find
their role, figure out how tofigure out how to communicate,
and just get things going toplay the game and and then they
take those skillsets back totheir team. And that is really
important. And what anotherthought that came to mind, as
you were talking is when youhave people that work in sales,
and they have a sales quota tomeet. That's a very individual
(07:40):
thing. And the reason that'simportant is because if you're
part of an organization, theorganization does better when
everybody does well. And so whatmight happen is not everybody's
aligned, or people don't want toshare what's going on, like
there was this example of afishing company. And these two
units that did fishing like deepsea fishing, wouldn't tell each
(08:01):
other where the best parts ofthe ocean to catch fish were
because they were likeindividual teams and not. And so
these two like leaders of theteams weren't really working
together, even though theorganization was suffering as a
whole. They were wanting to kindof keep those secrets and give
misleading information. So it isvery important. I mean, for
business in sport, anddefinitely agreed with you. What
(08:23):
about shaping team cultures? Imean, do you in your role and
mental skills and performanceoften optimization? And in
eSports? Have you How have youshaped team cultures of the
teams? Like is it I'm curious,what what what kind of work?
Have you done to do that?
Landon Gorbenko (08:38):
Another great question. I think you and I
talked about this a long timeago, I think where we were
talking about how do we how dowe build values and culture
within a team? And I wasthinking about what you said,
and I was I kind of kind offalling in the middle between
what I said back then and whatyou said, Then, when you said at
that point, because you saidthat, or I said that what I was
doing at that time was I wouldtry and kind of identify what
(09:02):
bonded or what kind of held theteam together, and then use
those principles to build theculture around that. So it was
more of like me intervening. Andthen you were I think you
correct me if I'm wrong, but youwere stating more along the
lines of you have like aworkshop and you get everybody
to suggest values or differentkinds of points of culture that
(09:23):
the players thought were good.
And then you use that and thenthey build their culture around
those things. And so I thinkthat kind of falls somewhere in
the middle there. Now, whereit's we do those workshops, we
put those values on the board.
But we also try and take what wealready see within all the
players like maybe maybe thisgroup of boys or this this group
of players love to meme, we willtry and shape their culture a
(09:47):
little bit around that likegoofier side because they're
more of like a goofy team,essentially, if they're members.
But then while I'm also shapingthat I'm trying to get their
input on what they think isvaluable, like loyalty For
example is one that's very hugein eSports. Because, up until
this point, one of the thingsthat happened very frequently
was, a team would form a teamwould do well, and the team
(10:10):
might not do so well. And themoment they don't do so well,
they blow apart. And so loyaltyhas become like a very key part
of culture building withineSports. Because we need to make
sure that teams stay together,even when things get tough,
because that's not somethingthat traditionally happened like
in fortnight, League of Legends,Call of Duty, Apex, Overwatch,
CSGO, whatever, whatever gameyou're looking at, teams will
(10:31):
blow up, as soon as they startgoing bad, they just fall apart.
And so loyalty is is definitelyone that I think a lot of teams
are trying to shape theiridentity around. And that's one
that I use frequently. So it'slike, when we know when
something goes bad, it's anexpectation that we work through
it, we don't fall apart. It's Isit an expectation that we, we
work through it, and it's toughgetting esport athletes to buy
(10:53):
into culture development,because again, their development
came from a very isolated bythemselves growth, like it
wasn't with teams, they didn't,they usually didn't get to the
point that they're at now,because they were working with
teams, it's because they playedalone. And that playing alone is
what got them here. So in theirminds, even if it's like
consciously or unconsciously, intheir mind's eye, the way that I
(11:16):
continue to grow is by playingalone. So you really do have to
try and build that loyalty. Andit's tough game to buy into
those cultural things. And Ithink you have to in bed an
expectation within the entireorganization, that being part of
this team means you live andabide by these kind of
expectations. And that thatexpectation becomes the culture
(11:39):
of the team. So yeah, that's howwe build team culture and
eSports is still like it's anart form is not clean. It's very
difficult to do with an esportathletes.
Zoran Stojkovic (11:50):
That sounds like something where you have
individual sport athletes intraditional sports, or in the
world of business, you havepeople who are used to working
alone, like contractors, oragain, sales or something like
that, where they're reallyworking on their own. And
they're not part of a team nowbeing part of a team or an
organization, or being part of acollege program where now they
gotta do gymnastics, but they'repart of a team. They're not
(12:13):
individual anymore with onlytheir coach and and there's this
environment, and there's allsorts of things going on. It
definitely is an art form to tocultivate that.
Landon Gorbenko (12:23):
Yeah, I guess the one of the things we'll add
there, too, is one of the thingsthat has been applied that a lot
of performance coaches or sportssites have been doing in eSports
is, and I don't think this isvery effective, at least I don't
from the results, I don't thinkit's been very effective is
systems of self accountability,where performance coaches have
put in place things like, likefines, if you're late to
(12:46):
practice, or whatever it mightbe, like they put in systems of
self accountability. And it'sbeen by and large, failing.
Like, I know that players stillshow up late because they'll
just pay the fine, they don'tcare. They Yeah, they won't wear
their jersey to practices,because again, they just don't
care. It's just the punishmentonly goes themselves. And I
think going forward, we're gonnasee more teen culture is built
(13:06):
around team accountability,where if I'm late for practice,
it's my teammates that are hurt,not me. And I think that's
something we're gonna be seeingvery shortly now. So it's like,
say, You and I are a duo. Andyou're in the practice room
ready to go, and I'm 10 minuteslate, you're probably going to
be the one that has the finebecause I was late. Right? I
(13:27):
think that's what it feels likejust from talking to some other
performance coaches. That's theway culture development is going
now is that the the, the selfaccountability and the self
identity is not working ineSports. And we have to build
that collective in that group.
And I think group accountabilityis like the next wave of
performance coaching withineSports.
Zoran Stojkovic (13:49):
Yeah, and I've definitely seen that in
traditional sports as well. AndI mean, people, people or people
everywhere in groups, or groups,and it's, I think what we're
talking about can really begeneralized to any context. I've
definitely seen that live inperson, were late to practice.
Everybody else who's on time hasgot to do fitness until you get
(14:11):
there. So then, yeah, there itis, that your teammates to you
out, but I don't I kind ofquestion that, because well, now
we're talking about motivation.
Yeah, I think that that's a formof extrinsic motivation, where
you were somebody else's gettingpunished for it. I think, if
there's a deep commitment, andthere's a deep accountability
within the culture, and one ofthe the desired behaviors is
(14:33):
responsibility or preparation orpunctuality, then calling people
out and having the team call theperson, team members call the
person out, as opposed to theleader of the team or the coach.
I think that's really important.
Unfortunately, those kind ofconversations don't get had too
(14:55):
often because there isn't greatpsychological safety but by
default, and what I've learnedIn a lot of teams, and by
psychological safety, I meanability and that freedom to be
vulnerable and to take risks andto actually say things to each
other that that matter and tohave that, you know, like to
call somebody out. And I thinkthe best teams in the world have
that, where, if you're late,I'll call you out like, Man,
(15:17):
you're late. I've been waiting,and you receive it as feedback.
And you're like, Oh, crap, I am.
Yeah, seriously, my apologies.
Like, I'm not gonna let ithappen again. Yeah, I mean, it's
a it's a lot more powerful. Andmean, when we're thinking about
cultivating culture. I mean, foryou, what is the starting place?
And I mean, I know this is a isa tough question. Because
(15:37):
cultures can be can havedifferent, different needs and
strengths and weaknesses. And sowhat is the starting place? Who
has to be in on thoseconversations? Is it the leaders
in the culture? Is it the teammembers? Who would you start
with? And how is it cultivated?
Landon Gorbenko (15:54):
Yes. I think here's a two part. So one thing
I'm gonna say first is, I thinkteam culture and dynamics and
buy in all those kinds ofthings. I think there is a
little bit of a root of pride.
Like, I think one of thestarting points of developing
cultures, team pride, right?
Like when you look at a lot oftraditional sports, like not to
(16:16):
use a overused example, but AllBlacks, like there's such a deep
rooted pride for thatorganization. So when you get
called out for doing somethingwrong, it hurts because you are
proud to be part of thisorganization. And to be called
out on something you're proudof, to be part of that hurts
because it's, it's like anattack on the personal self. And
(16:36):
that's not we don't quite seethat in eSports. Yet, it's
definitely developing as muchmore so than before even better
teams like even in Yeah, the thebetter teams are developing now.
So like, if I was to be part ofTSM, or cloud nine, the players
that are being put on thoseteams, now they're starting to
feel that like, Let's go, I'mpart of C9. Like, this is huge.
Let's go. But outside of that,not so much. Yes. It's still
(17:00):
early days. There's almost likeentitlement where a good players
like, yeah, I deserve to be onthis team. Not a sense of pride
to be on the team. But like,yeah, I deserve this. And I
think that's a little bit of thewrong way thing. But I think no
matter how good you are, youshould feel pride in the
organization that you're playingfor. Because that gives you buy
in, and when you're bought intoit, then you are pushing towards
(17:21):
the team's goals, not justyourself.
Zoran Stojkovic (17:22):
Oh, absolutely.
Landon Gorbenko (17:24):
If you have, yeah, if you have that sense of
entitlement, you expect yourteam to follow suit with you,
right? Like you say, this is mygoals, I deserve to be here. So
my teammates should be followingme. And if they're not, then
they're the ones that hurt.
They're the ones that aremessing up.
Zoran Stojkovic (17:38):
As star performers. Sometimes can.
They're, you know,
Landon Gorbenko (17:41):
Michael Jordan
Zoran Stojkovic (17:43):
Michael Jordan, right? Last Dance, right. Like
coming in and being a starperformer and a team before and,
or maybe knowing that you're thebest and the team that you're
at. And that's really tricky.
Because companies and teams thatare built around star performers
typically don't do very well,long term, a piece of that is
you really want that personthat's a star performer that has
(18:03):
a lot of influence over theculture and certain people have
more influence over the cultureand certain people have less you
want those people to buy intothose behaviors that you're
you're wanting to you as theorganization wanting to live
because it kind of goes down toall levels, doesn't it like to
the staff and the backend of theoffice to the people working on
the front end to to the C suitelevel and to the to the other
(18:25):
stakeholders? Like it's, it's soimportant that everybody buys
into it, but that culture shiftis, is really challenging. I
think it starts with aconversation, having a
conversation and just saying,Look, what do we want? Like,
what do we want this this year?
If If 2021 is successful for us?
How does that look? What are theoutcomes we'd have? Okay, what
(18:45):
about looking at at ourrelationships? If 2021 is a
success? How does that look? Youknow, how are we going to be
communicating? What are we goingto be doing or not doing? What
about when we're working? Ortraining? How's that going to
look? What are we at juststarting with some of those
conversations and clarifyingthat for people and just letting
I think it's important to forthe C suite to have like for
(19:07):
that for the leaders of theorganization to have those
conversations beforehand to setout some sort of framework, and
to set out a couple of keybehaviors. But what I found to
be really effective is to thenlet the members of the team who
are actually going to be doingthe day to day and doing a lot
of the heavy lifting, to havethem come up with what does that
mean? Like? What does it mean tobe punctual to you? And what
(19:31):
happens if somebody is notpunctual? So going, somebody
going against the grain? Orthey're pointing in a different
direction? Who calls him out?
How do they call them out? Justso everybody knows to expect it?
And then obviously, when newplayers and new, new new people
and performers are on boardedonto the team, it's vital to let
(19:51):
those people know and toobviously to ask them questions
around what is it that we can doto support you and just make
people feel welcome, but like, Idon't Anything that's a starting
place like, hey, let's let'sscope this out, Landon. The
issue is, those conversations dohappen. teams go on retreats and
do like here's a strat plan forthe year, here's our goal goals
(20:12):
for the year, and then whathappens, it gets filed away or
it gets saved on a computer andthen or maybe it even gets put
on the wall. But then nothinghappens with that. I really
think it's a daily grind of likerepeating it until people
actually get sick of it of like,Yeah, what what are we about?
gait? We're about this? How didthat go? Today? If competing is
one of one of our key behaviorsor values? Who's somebody today
(20:34):
who exhibit it? And why is therea situation where you yourself
didn't really live up to thatvalue? And how can you do that
better next time, and justreally tying it in having that
common language and reallyhaving everybody buy into it,
because if the coaches live acertain set of values, and the
the athletes have a differentset of values, its nose is
pointed in different directions,and that does not word for
(20:55):
cultivating culture.
Landon Gorbenko (20:56):
Yeah, and I think you're right with the, you
kind of preach it till I getsick of it is, is actually
something that I think is fairlyuseful. And the reason why I
think that is, let's just lookat the way that kids are raised,
right? Like your parents, justhound you with different kinds
of morals and values and stuff,right, and you get sick of it,
and you rebel. And there is likethat, that tension between you
(21:16):
and what your parents aresaying. And then you turn 25,
and you just your defaultsetting is everything that they
beat into you like in terms oflike, morals and values. And I
know that's not like a perfectanalogy, and I kind of worded it
poorly. But it's kind of similarin eSports, worse, or not
eSports. But any performancedomain, you teach something, you
teach something, and you teachsomething, you teach something,
(21:37):
and then when you're done allthat you teach it again, you
teach it again, right, you justkeep on going, they're gonna get
sick of it, like it's notsomething you want to hear on
repeat, but eventually becomespart of the expectations and the
the baseline culture within anorganization. And I think that's
what we're aiming for. Andeventually, when, when the bad
word hits the fan, they're gonnathey're gonna default to those
(22:03):
things that you were teachingthem because it was pounded into
them, right? Yes, it's cool. AndI, there's actually an idea and
this, you might have a good,good input on this. So there's,
when you're looking at anorganization, so let's say like
you have the management teamwithin a sporting organization,
and then you have the team, theplayers of an organization, do
(22:24):
the values and the culture ofthe organization, should they be
adopted by the players? Shouldthe organization adopt to the
ones that the players put inplace? Should there be different
values and culture between theorganization? And the players?
Like? That's a tough question tohave as well, like, Where is the
entire thing need its owndynamics and its own values and
(22:44):
morals? And whatever? Or arethey split a little bit? And
that's, that's an interestingquestion to have, too,
especially in eSports, where youhave usually some kind of
corporate entity that owns ateam. So players values and
their dynamics are going to bewildly different than what the
management's cultures and valuesare. So how do we bridge? That
(23:06):
is a very interesting questionthat they definitely don't have
the answer to
Zoran Stojkovic (23:10):
Oh, God, let's explore this a little bit. I
like that. Ultimately, I don'tthink those should be very
different. I think that I reallythink for an organization to be
successful, there has to bealignment from the top to the
bottom. Now, where does thatcome from? And how did the
values get decided? That's achallenging one, I've seen all
sorts of things, I've seen thevalues get brought in top down,
(23:31):
I've seen bottom up and thenmiddle out, I don't really know
what, what I feel is, is the wayto do it is to have everybody
have input into it, and tosomehow even if there are
organizational values, to find away to personalize it to the
team, here's what the valuesare. Here's a mission. Okay,
cool. What does that mean to us?
What does that mean to thisgroup, this team of 689 people,
(23:52):
whatever it is, becausesometimes in an organization,
you have, like 50 teams, or 100,teams of like, five to eight
people working. And it's like,each of those teams can't live
off of a recipe book and can'tlive the exact same values the
same way because the team isdifferent. Yeah, the team is
(24:12):
like, functionally, there's,there's eight human beings on
that team. There's eight minds,there's eight people with
different wants, desires, painpoints, wishes. So I think it's
really important to personalizeit to the team and to even like,
add in some of their own becausethat's that is going to happen,
that is going to happenspontaneously, but teams and
cultures and organizations have,like they have values, whether
(24:35):
they admit it or not. It's likeit's and it's basically the
behaviors that when you add upall the behaviors of all the
members on the team, how you'recommunicating, what are the
roles and is there clarityaround roles? Do people have
believe their work has meaning?
Do people believe their work hasimpact how do people
communicate? How do peoplerepresent the company? Why do
(24:58):
people work there like it's aBig mixture. And there's a lot
of things, but how that how doyou think team culture can be
measured? I mean, this is itcan't be an airy fairy concept,
right? Like, we got to be ableto put something to it.
Landon Gorbenko (25:15):
Here's so this is kind of me putting my own
thoughts onto my question,because this is something that
I've been exploring recently iswhere, how do you divide it?
Where is that like exactly whatI asked you. And the the thing
that I'm kind of sitting onright now that I'm liking the
most is that the organizationestablishes the values, builds
it into the structure of theorganization. So this applies to
(25:36):
the management staff all the waydown to the players, right, so
the values are implanted. Andthen the culture in dynamics is
each group within thatorganization, interpreting and
using those values. So themanagement staff sees, let's
just pick three random values.
So let's say let's say theorganization as a whole picks
loyalty. camaraderie, and I knowwhat's a good third ones aren't.
(26:00):
So let's say loyalty,camaraderie, and team members,
team, please First, I wouldalmost say those are the same as
loyalty. But anyway, let's saylet's say, let's say loyalty,
camaraderie, and feedback, let'ssay those are the three values
of i know, they're probably notreally great values, per se. But
let's say the organizationimplements those three values
(26:20):
into the entirety of theorganization. What those three
values then are, how they'reutilized by the management staff
might be different than how theplayers are utilizing it. But at
its very base, and core,everybody is abiding by these
three values. This is what builtthe organization, this is how
it's done. And when when, at theend of the day, when whether it
(26:41):
was a good or a bad day, whetherwe win or win or lose, we have
that camaraderie to fall backon. And so the players that
might be that might be theirmeme culture, where they're,
they're joking around, so theymight have just had just an
absolutely awful day, but theyare falling back on their their
love of jokes, and goofing off.
And all that kinds of that'swhere camaraderie falls in for
(27:02):
them. And the management staffmight have a different version
of camaraderie where they mightgo out for dinner together and
have a discussion, whatever itmight be like, they're both
abiding by that value, butthey're applying it in different
ways. And so then we havefeedback, the players might be
doing code reviews or debriefingfeedback, the management staff
might look a little bitdifferent. But again, they're
all abiding by those values. Andthat's kind of what I'm toying
(27:24):
with right now is implanting thevalues into the organization
itself, and then applying thosevalues differently based on the
needs of the group within theorganization.
Zoran Stojkovic (27:34):
Yeah, I think I think we agree on that point.
Like that's, I think that's the,that might be the best way to do
it. And and then how do youmeasure it? How do you measure,
measure team culture and assessit? Like, how do you measure
whether it's improved? How doyou measure whether it's gotten
better? Like, is it verysubjective? Or is there
objective measures that youthink and metrics that you think
(27:56):
companies can use?
Landon Gorbenko (27:57):
Hmm. I think, yeah, there's always going to be
some degree of of some degree ofobjective measurement that you
can do. But I think it's goingto be a hybrid always like, I'm
just trying to think, like, ifyou're doing something like
loyalty, for example, let's saythat's the value of an
organization, looking at theturnover rate within an
(28:20):
organization might indicate Areyou being effective with your
loyalty, because if you have ahuge turnover rate, that might
mean that you're treating itjust like you're looking at the
boss, and the boss has a hugeturnover rate of players
management that maybe that'sbecause you're treating them
poorly, so they don't feel thatsense of loyalty. So if you are
an organization that has hugeturnover rate, and then you
(28:42):
start slowly seeing that youryour management staff is staying
on longer, your players are alittle bit have longer longevity
under you. That might be anindication like that might be a
good way to measure loyalty oreven in terms of like
camaraderie, or some kind ofcohesiveness. You can kind of
(29:04):
measure just by based on howmuch time players spend
together. That's not really asubjective thing. But if they're
spending time together, andthey're spending time together
frequently that might indicatethat they're, they're bonding
right
Zoran Stojkovic (29:15):
You mean outside of training, outside of
work.
Landon Gorbenko (29:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Because they're, they'reobligated to be there during
work or training, that's part ofthe job. But when they're like
bonding outside of it, thatmight be an objective
measurement, that they'reincreasing their camaraderie and
their cohesiveness. And I don'tknow, that might not be a great
objective way. But there isalways creative ways that you
can objectively measuresomething based on that. But I
think the objective nature ofmeasuring those things is unique
(29:41):
to each team and each teamsettings, you have to figure out
ways to objectively measure itin that unique setting.
Zoran Stojkovic (29:47):
And there's, I mean, companies do surveys all
the time internally and, youknow, teams use questionnaires
and there's a lot of sportspsychology and leadership
questionnaires for measuringthat sort of stuff. I think,
like it's a really hardquestion. How do you measure a
team culture? How do you assessit? What are the metrics? I
really think you can feel it,which is a terrible answer.
Landon Gorbenko (30:08):
I don't think, I think that's a great answer.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:09):
When you go into a team, if there's banter,
if there's chatter, if there'sactivity, if there's energy,
that's a sign of Hey,something's people are people
enjoy being here.
Landon Gorbenko (30:19):
Exactly.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:19):
If you have those one on one conversations
and check ins as the leader ofthe team, and, and people seem
to be happy, and people don'tseem to be having issues with
each other, which like that,that might be another Well, I
don't know if that's perfect,though, like you, even high
performing teams have issues andchallenges. So I've got I don't
think that's I don't thinkthat's, that's great. But
(30:40):
companies are doing all sorts ofthings, man, like there's, for
communication, people wear thesethings around their neck, and it
tracks how close they are to, toa colleague, and how much time
they spend in close proximity.
And what was kind of cool aboutthat. And then not the content
of the conversation, but like,just basically those two things,
what this one company foundthrough using those lanyard,
(31:02):
electronic things is, hey, ifyou if your desk is within eight
meters of somebody else, you'relike, very likely to spend a lot
of time with them. But thefurther it gets away from that
eight meter mark, you virtuallydo not see them in person. And
that was kind of interesting,right? So it's like the seating
(31:24):
and accompany matters for forTeam culture. How you're seated.
Landon Gorbenko (31:29):
Yeah. Right.
Zoran Stojkovic (31:31):
There's we got, I think it's a Dunbar's number
of 151. Malcolm Gladwell talksabout it, and in the tipping
point, and it's like Dunbarfound that when companies get to
more than 151, people, theylike, things start to break
down. And he noticed this withlike social connections, because
(31:51):
the research on it where it'slike, you have 150 people in
your life, we can have 150, upto 150, like meaningful
relationships in our life at anygiven time. And there's 150
people who, if we saw them at abar, we'd go for a drink. Like
if we saw them randomly on likea Friday night at a bar, we go
for them for a drink. So there'sthings like that as well. And I,
(32:12):
I know, obviously, like companyculture is going to become more
and more important. As we ascompanies are shifting to
online, remote cultures,companies that used to be in
person or maybe now doing remotework. So that definitely changes
the culture, doesn't it becausenow you're not seeing each other
in person and you're you'redoing things online, you don't
have that random water coolerchat that you would otherwise
Landon Gorbenko (32:34):
I think for what it's worth, like, I don't
think we can discount the use ofsubjective measures like the I
feel it, we can't because it'slike, I'm sure every performance
coach listening to this or inthe entire world knows other
performance coaches, who knowsliterature inside and out, like
they know the science to a tee.
But then when they get put onwith a team they can't deliver,
(32:54):
right. And it's because theydon't have that, that feeling
like they don't have thatsubjective part objective.
scientific knowledge doesn'talways translate to practical
use. And I think that's a keypoint, like, part of being a
coach or anything in this realmis knowing the subjective side
of things, right, like knowinghow to enter like, you can get
(33:15):
like what the average is or whatthe standard is. But when you're
looking at an individual, it'svery difficult, it's very
different. And you have to beable to manipulate and use the
knowledge in a practical way.
And subjectivity is is a keypart of being a coach, you have
to be able to utilize it. And Ithink that's one of the defining
(33:36):
parts that separates like thegreat coaches and the good
coaches and the bad coaches isnot necessarily how much
knowledge they have, you have tohave office, you have to have a
certain baseline level ofknowledge to be successful, but
then how they apply the subjectof subjective parts of it
because that's, that's key, ifyou've got a coach that's just
lecturing, giving up all theinformation, but isn't able to
feel that the team isn'tcohesive. Like they they might
(33:59):
be doing all, all the rightthings according to literature,
and like they're delivering theright content. They're saying
the right things, but they'renot feeling what the team is
going through or how the team isinteracting with that
information. They're gonna missa lot of the delivery.
Zoran Stojkovic (34:13):
Yeah, absolutely. Marrying the
subjective and objective isreally important to knowing how
to ask questions and talk topeople individually on the team
to check in and to understandhow they're doing and and
really, really important, man,definitely agreed. Maybe my last
question to you is, what's onepractical tool, our listeners
(34:34):
can apply tomorrow to cultivatethe culture of their team,
regardless of their role withinthe organization?
Landon Gorbenko (34:41):
Hmm. So I don't know this directly answers your
question, but I think it is animportant thing for developing
culture in general, and it'sjust based on the whole concept
of trust. Is you as a coach, areyou asking sorry, are you asking
for coaches to use or forplayers to use or anybody
Zoran Stojkovic (34:58):
Regardless.
Landon Gorbenko (34:59):
Okay, You have to make it evident and well
known that you are in a safespace to talk to right? Like, if
you and I are a teammate, and Icome up to you say, dude, you
pissed me off yesterday, or youhurt me yesterday or even on a
positive side like, Man, youwere crushing it yesterday, I
need to know that you can takethat feedback. And so I think
(35:21):
that's one of the biggest thingsa lot of people can be doing.
And their own thing is makingsure that they make it known
that they will take feedbackpositively, and they won't take
it personally. And they'llactually utilize that in a way
that's helpful. I don't know ifthat's really a practical
thought.
Zoran Stojkovic (35:35):
That's a very practical thing, because you're
talking about psychologicalsafety again, and that
vulnerability, but your, your, Ifeel like, are you more so
talking about listening, whensomebody is taught and kind of
like asking questionsproactively and sharing when
things aren't going great foryou with another coworker or
(35:56):
teammate? sharing those kind ofthings?
Landon Gorbenko (35:58):
Yeah, I'll get I'll get let me give two
examples. One from a coachperspective, and one from a
player's perspective. Let's sayI'm coaching a team. And then a
player comes up to me later andsays, dude, what you were saying
today? made no sense. I don'tget it. What were you even
trying to tell me, I couldeither take that in a bad way
and be like, Alright, this, thisperson is obviously not
listening, not trying hard, I'mtaking a pause away and sit them
(36:19):
down and try and explain itfurther. So it's, it's making
sure they feel safe coming up totalk to me, tell me telling me
that they're either upset at meor they don't understand what
I'm saying, or whatever it is,like, they feel safe,
confronting me on those things.
And then likewise, as a player,if you're a player, so if your
coach comes to you and says,This is what your teammates are
feeling about you, understandingthat that's not an attack, but
(36:41):
that's trying to be helpful andconstructive. So it's really
just like, being able to createa safe environment where you've
taken information and use itproperly.
Zoran Stojkovic (36:51):
Nice. That's huge. So knowing as a coach,
knowing that if somebody comesup to you and wants to talk,
just giving them the space andnot judging it, just kind of
like welcoming the fact thatthey're even sharing something
with you. And then as a playerbeing open to getting feedback
from teammates and coaches. Andso essentially your one
practical tool is communication.
Landon Gorbenko (37:12):
Yeah. Or it's even like openness to feedback
might be a better way of sayingis that might be the best way is
because if you shut down things,when there's feedback, whether
it's positive or negative,you're really rejecting the
possibility of growth. So it'sreally just being open for
feedback.
Zoran Stojkovic (37:27):
Nice, growth.
That is a nice word. So Landon,tell us what you're up to right
now and where people can findyou.
Landon Gorbenko (37:33):
Yeah, so one of the things and this is just like
a little bit of a reach out topeople. But one of the things is
I'm very, very passionate abouttrying to build the esports
ecosystem and getting peopleinvolved with it. So if you do
ever have any questions of thisto anybody, not just us or him,
but like to everybody out therethat's listening. If you have
any questions about eSportsyou're wanting to learn more
about it, feel free to reach outto me I'm more than happy to
(37:55):
jump on a call with you or helpyou out in any way possible. And
the best way to get in contactwith me is either on Twitter,
which is at vertex psych,LinkedIn, which is just landed
Banco my name, or actually thoseare probably the two best if you
use Discord. You can you canjoin me message on discord,
which is for Vertex#8689. That'smy username. And those are
(38:15):
probably the three best ways tojust get in contact with me or
reach out to me. I'm prettyresponsive on all platforms.
Zoran Stojkovic (38:21):
Nice London I'll put those in the shownotes
thanks so much for coming on.
That was a that was a reallycool conversation and I'm sure
we'll have you on again and andkeep talking about this sort of
stuff as we explore.
Landon Gorbenko (38:32):
Absolutely, always happy to come on.
Zoran Stojkovic (38:38):
Hey, thanks for tuning in to cultivate your
culture, rate and review ourpodcast on iTunes. Any websites
and resources mentioned in thepodcast as well as the guests
information can be found on theshow www.kizo.ca/podcast. Here's
a sneak peek of what's coming upin our episode next week.
Bruno Guevremont (39:02):
How do we determine what's the culture and
is this going to serve themission statement or our goals?
And and that's how I establishedthis because I find today nobody
discusses their definition of.
Zoran Stojkovic (39:21):
tight we're recording.
Landon Gorbenko (39:23):
Yay. Go
Zoran Stojkovic (39:26):
I'm not gonna cut that out.
Landon Gorbenko (39:28):
You better not I'm famous for my finger guns
ammo is finger gun.
Hello, I'm your host, Zoran Stojkovic and
welcome to cultivate yourculture. This podcast we'll be
discussing how leaders can buildconnected high performing teams
and business in sport usingactionable tools, evidence based
systems and simple processes.
Today we're joined by Landongore Benko, a really great
(00:25):
friend of mine and Landon Landonhas a quite an awesome
background. He has hisbachelor's in psychology, and
then a master's in performancepsychology. He's the director of
performance of powerup Academyand G science and works with a
wide range of amateur to proeSports athletes to improve
their mental skills and overallperformance, which includes team
(00:47):
culture and communication.
Landon, thank you for being onthe show. And welcome.
Landon Gorbenko (00:55):
You bet. I'm excited to be on here. I know
we're gonna have some goodconversation.
Zoran Stojkovic (00:58):
We are we are.
So maybe I'll start off byasking, What does cultivating
your culture mean to you in theesports world?
Landon Gorbenko (01:09):
Yeah, so cultivating your culture in an
esport world? Because foreverybody out there that's
listening, I primarily only workwith eSports. So that's why he's
asked about eSports specific?
It's a really good question.
Because right now, when you lookat almost any game, each game
kind of comes with a kind oflike its own culture, right. So
if you're working with a call ofduty team, if you're working
(01:30):
with the League of Legends team,or fortnight, squad, or whatever
it might be, the game itselfalmost comes with a culture. And
unfortunately, a lot of timesthose, those bits of culture are
very toxic. like Call of Duty,for example, it's got a
reasonably toxic and rage likeculture. So you got to, you got
to kind of find ways to remedythat. And so when I'm working
(01:52):
with the team, it's really aboutidentifying, like, what is
actually a beneficial thing likewhat what are we? What is the
current culture that your teamhas? That's toxic and holding
you back? Is it like,communication issues? Is it
value differences? Are you allpushing towards a different
goal, you really got to identifywhat kind of culture they
already have, that's kind ofharming them, and then establish
(02:14):
what would be a, a positive or ahelpful team culture. And in
eSports, it is a little bit it'speculiar in the sense that each
game like I was mentioning hasits own kind of inbuilt culture
just based on how the gamedeveloped. And so when you come
into each game, you kind of haveto understand what that the
default culture is there so thatyou can work on fixing that. And
(02:36):
it's, it's sometimes chaos,working with esport cultures,
for sure.
Zoran Stojkovic (02:41):
Yeah, neat. So you're saying each game kind of
has its own culture, much likecompanies would have their own
culture internally. And you'resaying that cultivating your
culture to you meansunderstanding? What are the
things that aren't going great.
So for example, if members inthe team are kind of going in
different directions, or havedifferent goals, different
values, and that are notaligning to each other's values
(03:03):
and team culture, and to the tothe values of the organization?
I guess that's where that's aplace you'd start and you start
some of those conversations. Sohow then how do you define team
culture? I mean, this is a termthat gets thrown around so
often. And there's a lot ofprofessionals that go into teams
do workshops, and all sorts ofthings. But I mean, how can we
actually define it? I mean,yeah, how do we make it
(03:26):
tangible?
Landon Gorbenko (03:28):
Yeah, I think that's a really good budget, how
do you define team culture,right? And either, for me, at
least just going off the top ofmy head, right with this
conversation, there's two, tworeally big things that we can be
looking at when we're looking atteam culture is one, what is the
team's purpose? And then numbertwo is how does the team
interact? Right? Like, I thinkthose are two really big
(03:49):
fundamental parts of teamculture. Because if you don't
know what your team's purposeis, like, is this a rec league?
Is it fun? Are we going for aworld championship? Are we going
for a regional champion? What isthe purpose of that team? If you
don't know that part, you don'treally know how to work
together, because everybody'sgoing off in their own
direction, doing their ownthing, and you're not really
functioning as a unit. And thenalso the other component of how
(04:11):
do we function together? So howdo we, how do we relay
information? How do we resolveconflict? What are our
strengths, weaknesses, likereally understanding how you
guys work as a unit? So I thinkteam culture, to me, at least in
my world, is kind of based offof those two things is the
purpose of the team and how doesthe team interact?
Zoran Stojkovic (04:30):
That's huge, right? Having that shared
purpose and having alignment onthat and getting buy in into it
even and then understanding thecommunication styles, how people
communicate how information isdisseminated. So why is that
important? Why is it importantto cultivate the culture of a
team and why not just have theseindividuals that are superstars?
Landon Gorbenko (04:48):
So again in eSports, one of the weird things
that doesn't happen intraditional sports is that
eSports I'm a competitor. I'm anathlete that's wanting to go pro
bulk of my my development spentin isolation, where what we do
is called soloqueue. Right?
Like, if I was doing League ofLegends, I'd queue up for games
by myself, I'd get paired withfour random teammates and
against five random teammates,because five on five. And I
(05:10):
really developed this sense oflike, not like an isolation,
identity kind of thing where I'mworking by myself, to get myself
to a certain point. And thenyou, when you finally make it to
the proceed, you are now in avery collective mindset, or
you're supposed to be raised tobe working alongside for other
people to create this reallycohesive five man squad, but
(05:32):
you're bringing into it, thisvery isolated kind of identity
where you've been, up until thispoint, you've been pushing your
own goals, your own strategies,your own plans. And so when you
get five people at all kind ofcome with come in with that kind
of mindset. And say, All right,now all five of you got to work
together, you got to solve this,they've never learned those
(05:53):
skills yet. So when things gowrong, it's everybody else's
fault, they tend to blameeverybody else, there's not a
whole lot of top tier conflictresolution, because up again, up
again, up until that point, it'sbeen very, like, I gotta do
this, I gotta do this, this isme, I have to wait, I have to do
this, you, it's all on yourself.
And this is why it's reallyimportant to esports, because
(06:16):
they, they've never had thatopportunity to work in the team.
And so you see a lot of cultureissues that way, because they've
just never learned how toresolve conflict, how to work
together towards one goal. Soeverybody's kind of pushing
towards their own goal. And thenyou get this big tension,
because everybody's going off onslightly different directions.
You got to we got to rein it inso that everybody's going
towards one unified vision.
Zoran Stojkovic (06:38):
Yeah, definitely all the noses have to
be pointed in the samedirection. And so what what I'm
understanding from what you'resaying is esport athletes
practice on their own throughsoloqueue, which is like a
mission, they get thrown in ontheir own with random opponents
and random teammates, who theydon't know. And they got a
really quickly improvise, andfigure out and adapt and be
(06:58):
flexible to win the game. Andthat reminds me of pickup
basketball. I mean, somebody wason a basketball team can go and
there's this great culture ofpickup basketball in Europe and
in parts of the states, andwhere people just go in and they
play a pickup game of basketballpeople they don't really know,
or people they might have bumpedinto before. And then what
(07:19):
they're doing there is they'reautomatically they got to find
their role, figure out how tofigure out how to communicate,
and just get things going toplay the game and and then they
take those skillsets back totheir team. And that is really
important. And what anotherthought that came to mind, as
you were talking is when youhave people that work in sales,
and they have a sales quota tomeet. That's a very individual
(07:40):
thing. And the reason that'simportant is because if you're
part of an organization, theorganization does better when
everybody does well. And so whatmight happen is not everybody's
aligned, or people don't want toshare what's going on, like
there was this example of afishing company. And these two
units that did fishing like deepsea fishing, wouldn't tell each
(08:01):
other where the best parts ofthe ocean to catch fish were
because they were likeindividual teams and not. And so
these two like leaders of theteams weren't really working
together, even though theorganization was suffering as a
whole. They were wanting to kindof keep those secrets and give
misleading information. So it isvery important. I mean, for
business in sport, anddefinitely agreed with you. What
(08:23):
about shaping team cultures? Imean, do you in your role and
mental skills and performanceoften optimization? And in
eSports? Have you How have youshaped team cultures of the
teams? Like is it I'm curious,what what what kind of work?
Have you done to do that?
Landon Gorbenko (08:38):
Another great question. I think you and I
talked about this a long timeago, I think where we were
talking about how do we how dowe build values and culture
within a team? And I wasthinking about what you said,
and I was I kind of kind offalling in the middle between
what I said back then and whatyou said, Then, when you said at
that point, because you saidthat, or I said that what I was
doing at that time was I wouldtry and kind of identify what
(09:02):
bonded or what kind of held theteam together, and then use
those principles to build theculture around that. So it was
more of like me intervening. Andthen you were I think you
correct me if I'm wrong, but youwere stating more along the
lines of you have like aworkshop and you get everybody
to suggest values or differentkinds of points of culture that
(09:23):
the players thought were good.
And then you use that and thenthey build their culture around
those things. And so I thinkthat kind of falls somewhere in
the middle there. Now, whereit's we do those workshops, we
put those values on the board.
But we also try and take what wealready see within all the
players like maybe maybe thisgroup of boys or this this group
of players love to meme, we willtry and shape their culture a
(09:47):
little bit around that likegoofier side because they're
more of like a goofy team,essentially, if they're members.
But then while I'm also shapingthat I'm trying to get their
input on what they think isvaluable, like loyalty For
example is one that's very hugein eSports. Because, up until
this point, one of the thingsthat happened very frequently
was, a team would form a teamwould do well, and the team
(10:10):
might not do so well. And themoment they don't do so well,
they blow apart. And so loyaltyhas become like a very key part
of culture building withineSports. Because we need to make
sure that teams stay together,even when things get tough,
because that's not somethingthat traditionally happened like
in fortnight, League of Legends,Call of Duty, Apex, Overwatch,
CSGO, whatever, whatever gameyou're looking at, teams will
(10:31):
blow up, as soon as they startgoing bad, they just fall apart.
And so loyalty is is definitelyone that I think a lot of teams
are trying to shape theiridentity around. And that's one
that I use frequently. So it'slike, when we know when
something goes bad, it's anexpectation that we work through
it, we don't fall apart. It's Isit an expectation that we, we
work through it, and it's toughgetting esport athletes to buy
(10:53):
into culture development,because again, their development
came from a very isolated bythemselves growth, like it
wasn't with teams, they didn't,they usually didn't get to the
point that they're at now,because they were working with
teams, it's because they playedalone. And that playing alone is
what got them here. So in theirminds, even if it's like
consciously or unconsciously, intheir mind's eye, the way that I
(11:16):
continue to grow is by playingalone. So you really do have to
try and build that loyalty. Andit's tough game to buy into
those cultural things. And Ithink you have to in bed an
expectation within the entireorganization, that being part of
this team means you live andabide by these kind of
expectations. And that thatexpectation becomes the culture
(11:39):
of the team. So yeah, that's howwe build team culture and
eSports is still like it's anart form is not clean. It's very
difficult to do with an esportathletes.
Zoran Stojkovic (11:50):
That sounds like something where you have
individual sport athletes intraditional sports, or in the
world of business, you havepeople who are used to working
alone, like contractors, oragain, sales or something like
that, where they're reallyworking on their own. And
they're not part of a team nowbeing part of a team or an
organization, or being part of acollege program where now they
gotta do gymnastics, but they'repart of a team. They're not
(12:13):
individual anymore with onlytheir coach and and there's this
environment, and there's allsorts of things going on. It
definitely is an art form to tocultivate that.
Landon Gorbenko (12:23):
Yeah, I guess the one of the things we'll add
there, too, is one of the thingsthat has been applied that a lot
of performance coaches or sportssites have been doing in eSports
is, and I don't think this isvery effective, at least I don't
from the results, I don't thinkit's been very effective is
systems of self accountability,where performance coaches have
put in place things like, likefines, if you're late to
(12:46):
practice, or whatever it mightbe, like they put in systems of
self accountability. And it'sbeen by and large, failing.
Like, I know that players stillshow up late because they'll
just pay the fine, they don'tcare. They Yeah, they won't wear
their jersey to practices,because again, they just don't
care. It's just the punishmentonly goes themselves. And I
think going forward, we're gonnasee more teen culture is built
(13:06):
around team accountability,where if I'm late for practice,
it's my teammates that are hurt,not me. And I think that's
something we're gonna be seeingvery shortly now. So it's like,
say, You and I are a duo. Andyou're in the practice room
ready to go, and I'm 10 minuteslate, you're probably going to
be the one that has the finebecause I was late. Right? I
(13:27):
think that's what it feels likejust from talking to some other
performance coaches. That's theway culture development is going
now is that the the, the selfaccountability and the self
identity is not working ineSports. And we have to build
that collective in that group.
And I think group accountabilityis like the next wave of
performance coaching withineSports.
Zoran Stojkovic (13:49):
Yeah, and I've definitely seen that in
traditional sports as well. AndI mean, people, people or people
everywhere in groups, or groups,and it's, I think what we're
talking about can really begeneralized to any context. I've
definitely seen that live inperson, were late to practice.
Everybody else who's on time hasgot to do fitness until you get
(14:11):
there. So then, yeah, there itis, that your teammates to you
out, but I don't I kind ofquestion that, because well, now
we're talking about motivation.
Yeah, I think that that's a formof extrinsic motivation, where
you were somebody else's gettingpunished for it. I think, if
there's a deep commitment, andthere's a deep accountability
within the culture, and one ofthe the desired behaviors is
(14:33):
responsibility or preparation orpunctuality, then calling people
out and having the team call theperson, team members call the
person out, as opposed to theleader of the team or the coach.
I think that's really important.
Unfortunately, those kind ofconversations don't get had too
(14:55):
often because there isn't greatpsychological safety but by
default, and what I've learnedIn a lot of teams, and by
psychological safety, I meanability and that freedom to be
vulnerable and to take risks andto actually say things to each
other that that matter and tohave that, you know, like to
call somebody out. And I thinkthe best teams in the world have
that, where, if you're late,I'll call you out like, Man,
(15:17):
you're late. I've been waiting,and you receive it as feedback.
And you're like, Oh, crap, I am.
Yeah, seriously, my apologies.
Like, I'm not gonna let ithappen again. Yeah, I mean, it's
a it's a lot more powerful. Andmean, when we're thinking about
cultivating culture. I mean, foryou, what is the starting place?
And I mean, I know this is a isa tough question. Because
(15:37):
cultures can be can havedifferent, different needs and
strengths and weaknesses. And sowhat is the starting place? Who
has to be in on thoseconversations? Is it the leaders
in the culture? Is it the teammembers? Who would you start
with? And how is it cultivated?
Landon Gorbenko (15:54):
Yes. I think here's a two part. So one thing
I'm gonna say first is, I thinkteam culture and dynamics and
buy in all those kinds ofthings. I think there is a
little bit of a root of pride.
Like, I think one of thestarting points of developing
cultures, team pride, right?
Like when you look at a lot oftraditional sports, like not to
(16:16):
use a overused example, but AllBlacks, like there's such a deep
rooted pride for thatorganization. So when you get
called out for doing somethingwrong, it hurts because you are
proud to be part of thisorganization. And to be called
out on something you're proudof, to be part of that hurts
because it's, it's like anattack on the personal self. And
(16:36):
that's not we don't quite seethat in eSports. Yet, it's
definitely developing as muchmore so than before even better
teams like even in Yeah, the thebetter teams are developing now.
So like, if I was to be part ofTSM, or cloud nine, the players
that are being put on thoseteams, now they're starting to
feel that like, Let's go, I'mpart of C9. Like, this is huge.
Let's go. But outside of that,not so much. Yes. It's still
(17:00):
early days. There's almost likeentitlement where a good players
like, yeah, I deserve to be onthis team. Not a sense of pride
to be on the team. But like,yeah, I deserve this. And I
think that's a little bit of thewrong way thing. But I think no
matter how good you are, youshould feel pride in the
organization that you're playingfor. Because that gives you buy
in, and when you're bought intoit, then you are pushing towards
(17:21):
the team's goals, not justyourself.
Zoran Stojkovic (17:22):
Oh, absolutely.
Landon Gorbenko (17:24):
If you have, yeah, if you have that sense of
entitlement, you expect yourteam to follow suit with you,
right? Like you say, this is mygoals, I deserve to be here. So
my teammates should be followingme. And if they're not, then
they're the ones that hurt.
They're the ones that aremessing up.
Zoran Stojkovic (17:38):
As star performers. Sometimes can.
They're, you know,
Landon Gorbenko (17:41):
Michael Jordan
Zoran Stojkovic (17:43):
Michael Jordan, right? Last Dance, right. Like
coming in and being a starperformer and a team before and,
or maybe knowing that you're thebest and the team that you're
at. And that's really tricky.
Because companies and teams thatare built around star performers
typically don't do very well,long term, a piece of that is
you really want that personthat's a star performer that has
(18:03):
a lot of influence over theculture and certain people have
more influence over the cultureand certain people have less you
want those people to buy intothose behaviors that you're
you're wanting to you as theorganization wanting to live
because it kind of goes down toall levels, doesn't it like to
the staff and the backend of theoffice to the people working on
the front end to to the C suitelevel and to the to the other
(18:25):
stakeholders? Like it's, it's soimportant that everybody buys
into it, but that culture shiftis, is really challenging. I
think it starts with aconversation, having a
conversation and just saying,Look, what do we want? Like,
what do we want this this year?
If If 2021 is successful for us?
How does that look? What are theoutcomes we'd have? Okay, what
(18:45):
about looking at at ourrelationships? If 2021 is a
success? How does that look? Youknow, how are we going to be
communicating? What are we goingto be doing or not doing? What
about when we're working? Ortraining? How's that going to
look? What are we at juststarting with some of those
conversations and clarifyingthat for people and just letting
I think it's important to forthe C suite to have like for
(19:07):
that for the leaders of theorganization to have those
conversations beforehand to setout some sort of framework, and
to set out a couple of keybehaviors. But what I found to
be really effective is to thenlet the members of the team who
are actually going to be doingthe day to day and doing a lot
of the heavy lifting, to havethem come up with what does that
mean? Like? What does it mean tobe punctual to you? And what
(19:31):
happens if somebody is notpunctual? So going, somebody
going against the grain? Orthey're pointing in a different
direction? Who calls him out?
How do they call them out? Justso everybody knows to expect it?
And then obviously, when newplayers and new, new new people
and performers are on boardedonto the team, it's vital to let
(19:51):
those people know and toobviously to ask them questions
around what is it that we can doto support you and just make
people feel welcome, but like, Idon't Anything that's a starting
place like, hey, let's let'sscope this out, Landon. The
issue is, those conversations dohappen. teams go on retreats and
do like here's a strat plan forthe year, here's our goal goals
(20:12):
for the year, and then whathappens, it gets filed away or
it gets saved on a computer andthen or maybe it even gets put
on the wall. But then nothinghappens with that. I really
think it's a daily grind of likerepeating it until people
actually get sick of it of like,Yeah, what what are we about?
gait? We're about this? How didthat go? Today? If competing is
one of one of our key behaviorsor values? Who's somebody today
(20:34):
who exhibit it? And why is therea situation where you yourself
didn't really live up to thatvalue? And how can you do that
better next time, and justreally tying it in having that
common language and reallyhaving everybody buy into it,
because if the coaches live acertain set of values, and the
the athletes have a differentset of values, its nose is
pointed in different directions,and that does not word for
(20:55):
cultivating culture.
Landon Gorbenko (20:56):
Yeah, and I think you're right with the, you
kind of preach it till I getsick of it is, is actually
something that I think is fairlyuseful. And the reason why I
think that is, let's just lookat the way that kids are raised,
right? Like your parents, justhound you with different kinds
of morals and values and stuff,right, and you get sick of it,
and you rebel. And there is likethat, that tension between you
(21:16):
and what your parents aresaying. And then you turn 25,
and you just your defaultsetting is everything that they
beat into you like in terms oflike, morals and values. And I
know that's not like a perfectanalogy, and I kind of worded it
poorly. But it's kind of similarin eSports, worse, or not
eSports. But any performancedomain, you teach something, you
teach something, and you teachsomething, you teach something,
(21:37):
and then when you're done allthat you teach it again, you
teach it again, right, you justkeep on going, they're gonna get
sick of it, like it's notsomething you want to hear on
repeat, but eventually becomespart of the expectations and the
the baseline culture within anorganization. And I think that's
what we're aiming for. Andeventually, when, when the bad
word hits the fan, they're gonnathey're gonna default to those
(22:03):
things that you were teachingthem because it was pounded into
them, right? Yes, it's cool. AndI, there's actually an idea and
this, you might have a good,good input on this. So there's,
when you're looking at anorganization, so let's say like
you have the management teamwithin a sporting organization,
and then you have the team, theplayers of an organization, do
(22:24):
the values and the culture ofthe organization, should they be
adopted by the players? Shouldthe organization adopt to the
ones that the players put inplace? Should there be different
values and culture between theorganization? And the players?
Like? That's a tough question tohave as well, like, Where is the
entire thing need its owndynamics and its own values and
(22:44):
morals? And whatever? Or arethey split a little bit? And
that's, that's an interestingquestion to have, too,
especially in eSports, where youhave usually some kind of
corporate entity that owns ateam. So players values and
their dynamics are going to bewildly different than what the
management's cultures and valuesare. So how do we bridge? That
(23:06):
is a very interesting questionthat they definitely don't have
the answer to
Zoran Stojkovic (23:10):
Oh, God, let's explore this a little bit. I
like that. Ultimately, I don'tthink those should be very
different. I think that I reallythink for an organization to be
successful, there has to bealignment from the top to the
bottom. Now, where does thatcome from? And how did the
values get decided? That's achallenging one, I've seen all
sorts of things, I've seen thevalues get brought in top down,
(23:31):
I've seen bottom up and thenmiddle out, I don't really know
what, what I feel is, is the wayto do it is to have everybody
have input into it, and tosomehow even if there are
organizational values, to find away to personalize it to the
team, here's what the valuesare. Here's a mission. Okay,
cool. What does that mean to us?
What does that mean to thisgroup, this team of 689 people,
(23:52):
whatever it is, becausesometimes in an organization,
you have, like 50 teams, or 100,teams of like, five to eight
people working. And it's like,each of those teams can't live
off of a recipe book and can'tlive the exact same values the
same way because the team isdifferent. Yeah, the team is
(24:12):
like, functionally, there's,there's eight human beings on
that team. There's eight minds,there's eight people with
different wants, desires, painpoints, wishes. So I think it's
really important to personalizeit to the team and to even like,
add in some of their own becausethat's that is going to happen,
that is going to happenspontaneously, but teams and
cultures and organizations have,like they have values, whether
(24:35):
they admit it or not. It's likeit's and it's basically the
behaviors that when you add upall the behaviors of all the
members on the team, how you'recommunicating, what are the
roles and is there clarityaround roles? Do people have
believe their work has meaning?
Do people believe their work hasimpact how do people
communicate? How do peoplerepresent the company? Why do
(24:58):
people work there like it's aBig mixture. And there's a lot
of things, but how that how doyou think team culture can be
measured? I mean, this is itcan't be an airy fairy concept,
right? Like, we got to be ableto put something to it.
Landon Gorbenko (25:15):
Here's so this is kind of me putting my own
thoughts onto my question,because this is something that
I've been exploring recently iswhere, how do you divide it?
Where is that like exactly whatI asked you. And the the thing
that I'm kind of sitting onright now that I'm liking the
most is that the organizationestablishes the values, builds
it into the structure of theorganization. So this applies to
(25:36):
the management staff all the waydown to the players, right, so
the values are implanted. Andthen the culture in dynamics is
each group within thatorganization, interpreting and
using those values. So themanagement staff sees, let's
just pick three random values.
So let's say let's say theorganization as a whole picks
loyalty. camaraderie, and I knowwhat's a good third ones aren't.
(26:00):
So let's say loyalty,camaraderie, and team members,
team, please First, I wouldalmost say those are the same as
loyalty. But anyway, let's saylet's say, let's say loyalty,
camaraderie, and feedback, let'ssay those are the three values
of i know, they're probably notreally great values, per se. But
let's say the organizationimplements those three values
(26:20):
into the entirety of theorganization. What those three
values then are, how they'reutilized by the management staff
might be different than how theplayers are utilizing it. But at
its very base, and core,everybody is abiding by these
three values. This is what builtthe organization, this is how
it's done. And when when, at theend of the day, when whether it
(26:41):
was a good or a bad day, whetherwe win or win or lose, we have
that camaraderie to fall backon. And so the players that
might be that might be theirmeme culture, where they're,
they're joking around, so theymight have just had just an
absolutely awful day, but theyare falling back on their their
love of jokes, and goofing off.
And all that kinds of that'swhere camaraderie falls in for
(27:02):
them. And the management staffmight have a different version
of camaraderie where they mightgo out for dinner together and
have a discussion, whatever itmight be like, they're both
abiding by that value, butthey're applying it in different
ways. And so then we havefeedback, the players might be
doing code reviews or debriefingfeedback, the management staff
might look a little bitdifferent. But again, they're
all abiding by those values. Andthat's kind of what I'm toying
(27:24):
with right now is implanting thevalues into the organization
itself, and then applying thosevalues differently based on the
needs of the group within theorganization.
Zoran Stojkovic (27:34):
Yeah, I think I think we agree on that point.
Like that's, I think that's the,that might be the best way to do
it. And and then how do youmeasure it? How do you measure,
measure team culture and assessit? Like, how do you measure
whether it's improved? How doyou measure whether it's gotten
better? Like, is it verysubjective? Or is there
objective measures that youthink and metrics that you think
(27:56):
companies can use?
Landon Gorbenko (27:57):
Hmm. I think, yeah, there's always going to be
some degree of of some degree ofobjective measurement that you
can do. But I think it's goingto be a hybrid always like, I'm
just trying to think, like, ifyou're doing something like
loyalty, for example, let's saythat's the value of an
organization, looking at theturnover rate within an
(28:20):
organization might indicate Areyou being effective with your
loyalty, because if you have ahuge turnover rate, that might
mean that you're treating itjust like you're looking at the
boss, and the boss has a hugeturnover rate of players
management that maybe that'sbecause you're treating them
poorly, so they don't feel thatsense of loyalty. So if you are
an organization that has hugeturnover rate, and then you
(28:42):
start slowly seeing that youryour management staff is staying
on longer, your players are alittle bit have longer longevity
under you. That might be anindication like that might be a
good way to measure loyalty oreven in terms of like
camaraderie, or some kind ofcohesiveness. You can kind of
(29:04):
measure just by based on howmuch time players spend
together. That's not really asubjective thing. But if they're
spending time together, andthey're spending time together
frequently that might indicatethat they're, they're bonding
right
Zoran Stojkovic (29:15):
You mean outside of training, outside of
work.
Landon Gorbenko (29:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Because they're, they'reobligated to be there during
work or training, that's part ofthe job. But when they're like
bonding outside of it, thatmight be an objective
measurement, that they'reincreasing their camaraderie and
their cohesiveness. And I don'tknow, that might not be a great
objective way. But there isalways creative ways that you
can objectively measuresomething based on that. But I
think the objective nature ofmeasuring those things is unique
(29:41):
to each team and each teamsettings, you have to figure out
ways to objectively measure itin that unique setting.
Zoran Stojkovic (29:47):
And there's, I mean, companies do surveys all
the time internally and, youknow, teams use questionnaires
and there's a lot of sportspsychology and leadership
questionnaires for measuringthat sort of stuff. I think,
like it's a really hardquestion. How do you measure a
team culture? How do you assessit? What are the metrics? I
really think you can feel it,which is a terrible answer.
Landon Gorbenko (30:08):
I don't think, I think that's a great answer.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:09):
When you go into a team, if there's banter,
if there's chatter, if there'sactivity, if there's energy,
that's a sign of Hey,something's people are people
enjoy being here.
Landon Gorbenko (30:19):
Exactly.
Zoran Stojkovic (30:19):
If you have those one on one conversations
and check ins as the leader ofthe team, and, and people seem
to be happy, and people don'tseem to be having issues with
each other, which like that,that might be another Well, I
don't know if that's perfect,though, like you, even high
performing teams have issues andchallenges. So I've got I don't
think that's I don't thinkthat's, that's great. But
(30:40):
companies are doing all sorts ofthings, man, like there's, for
communication, people wear thesethings around their neck, and it
tracks how close they are to, toa colleague, and how much time
they spend in close proximity.
And what was kind of cool aboutthat. And then not the content
of the conversation, but like,just basically those two things,
what this one company foundthrough using those lanyard,
(31:02):
electronic things is, hey, ifyou if your desk is within eight
meters of somebody else, you'relike, very likely to spend a lot
of time with them. But thefurther it gets away from that
eight meter mark, you virtuallydo not see them in person. And
that was kind of interesting,right? So it's like the seating
(31:24):
and accompany matters for forTeam culture. How you're seated.
Landon Gorbenko (31:29):
Yeah. Right.
Zoran Stojkovic (31:31):
There's we got, I think it's a Dunbar's number
of 151. Malcolm Gladwell talksabout it, and in the tipping
point, and it's like Dunbarfound that when companies get to
more than 151, people, theylike, things start to break
down. And he noticed this withlike social connections, because
(31:51):
the research on it where it'slike, you have 150 people in
your life, we can have 150, upto 150, like meaningful
relationships in our life at anygiven time. And there's 150
people who, if we saw them at abar, we'd go for a drink. Like
if we saw them randomly on likea Friday night at a bar, we go
for them for a drink. So there'sthings like that as well. And I,
(32:12):
I know, obviously, like companyculture is going to become more
and more important. As we ascompanies are shifting to
online, remote cultures,companies that used to be in
person or maybe now doing remotework. So that definitely changes
the culture, doesn't it becausenow you're not seeing each other
in person and you're you'redoing things online, you don't
have that random water coolerchat that you would otherwise
Landon Gorbenko (32:34):
I think for what it's worth, like, I don't
think we can discount the use ofsubjective measures like the I
feel it, we can't because it'slike, I'm sure every performance
coach listening to this or inthe entire world knows other
performance coaches, who knowsliterature inside and out, like
they know the science to a tee.
But then when they get put onwith a team they can't deliver,
(32:54):
right. And it's because theydon't have that, that feeling
like they don't have thatsubjective part objective.
scientific knowledge doesn'talways translate to practical
use. And I think that's a keypoint, like, part of being a
coach or anything in this realmis knowing the subjective side
of things, right, like knowinghow to enter like, you can get
(33:15):
like what the average is or whatthe standard is. But when you're
looking at an individual, it'svery difficult, it's very
different. And you have to beable to manipulate and use the
knowledge in a practical way.
And subjectivity is is a keypart of being a coach, you have
to be able to utilize it. And Ithink that's one of the defining
(33:36):
parts that separates like thegreat coaches and the good
coaches and the bad coaches isnot necessarily how much
knowledge they have, you have tohave office, you have to have a
certain baseline level ofknowledge to be successful, but
then how they apply the subjectof subjective parts of it
because that's, that's key, ifyou've got a coach that's just
lecturing, giving up all theinformation, but isn't able to
feel that the team isn'tcohesive. Like they they might
(33:59):
be doing all, all the rightthings according to literature,
and like they're delivering theright content. They're saying
the right things, but they'renot feeling what the team is
going through or how the team isinteracting with that
information. They're gonna missa lot of the delivery.
Zoran Stojkovic (34:13):
Yeah, absolutely. Marrying the
subjective and objective isreally important to knowing how
to ask questions and talk topeople individually on the team
to check in and to understandhow they're doing and and
really, really important, man,definitely agreed. Maybe my last
question to you is, what's onepractical tool, our listeners
(34:34):
can apply tomorrow to cultivatethe culture of their team,
regardless of their role withinthe organization?
Landon Gorbenko (34:41):
Hmm. So I don't know this directly answers your
question, but I think it is animportant thing for developing
culture in general, and it'sjust based on the whole concept
of trust. Is you as a coach, areyou asking sorry, are you asking
for coaches to use or forplayers to use or anybody
Zoran Stojkovic (34:58):
Regardless.
Landon Gorbenko (34:59):
Okay, You have to make it evident and well
known that you are in a safespace to talk to right? Like, if
you and I are a teammate, and Icome up to you say, dude, you
pissed me off yesterday, or youhurt me yesterday or even on a
positive side like, Man, youwere crushing it yesterday, I
need to know that you can takethat feedback. And so I think
(35:21):
that's one of the biggest thingsa lot of people can be doing.
And their own thing is makingsure that they make it known
that they will take feedbackpositively, and they won't take
it personally. And they'llactually utilize that in a way
that's helpful. I don't know ifthat's really a practical
thought.
Zoran Stojkovic (35:35):
That's a very practical thing, because you're
talking about psychologicalsafety again, and that
vulnerability, but your, your, Ifeel like, are you more so
talking about listening, whensomebody is taught and kind of
like asking questionsproactively and sharing when
things aren't going great foryou with another coworker or
(35:56):
teammate? sharing those kind ofthings?
Landon Gorbenko (35:58):
Yeah, I'll get I'll get let me give two
examples. One from a coachperspective, and one from a
player's perspective. Let's sayI'm coaching a team. And then a
player comes up to me later andsays, dude, what you were saying
today? made no sense. I don'tget it. What were you even
trying to tell me, I couldeither take that in a bad way
and be like, Alright, this, thisperson is obviously not
listening, not trying hard, I'mtaking a pause away and sit them
(36:19):
down and try and explain itfurther. So it's, it's making
sure they feel safe coming up totalk to me, tell me telling me
that they're either upset at meor they don't understand what
I'm saying, or whatever it is,like, they feel safe,
confronting me on those things.
And then likewise, as a player,if you're a player, so if your
coach comes to you and says,This is what your teammates are
feeling about you, understandingthat that's not an attack, but
(36:41):
that's trying to be helpful andconstructive. So it's really
just like, being able to createa safe environment where you've
taken information and use itproperly.
Zoran Stojkovic (36:51):
Nice. That's huge. So knowing as a coach,
knowing that if somebody comesup to you and wants to talk,
just giving them the space andnot judging it, just kind of
like welcoming the fact thatthey're even sharing something
with you. And then as a playerbeing open to getting feedback
from teammates and coaches. Andso essentially your one
practical tool is communication.
Landon Gorbenko (37:12):
Yeah. Or it's even like openness to feedback
might be a better way of sayingis that might be the best way is
because if you shut down things,when there's feedback, whether
it's positive or negative,you're really rejecting the
possibility of growth. So it'sreally just being open for
feedback.
Zoran Stojkovic (37:27):
Nice, growth.
That is a nice word. So Landon,tell us what you're up to right
now and where people can findyou.
Landon Gorbenko (37:33):
Yeah, so one of the things and this is just like
a little bit of a reach out topeople. But one of the things is
I'm very, very passionate abouttrying to build the esports
ecosystem and getting peopleinvolved with it. So if you do
ever have any questions of thisto anybody, not just us or him,
but like to everybody out therethat's listening. If you have
any questions about eSportsyou're wanting to learn more
about it, feel free to reach outto me I'm more than happy to
(37:55):
jump on a call with you or helpyou out in any way possible. And
the best way to get in contactwith me is either on Twitter,
which is at vertex psych,LinkedIn, which is just landed
Banco my name, or actually thoseare probably the two best if you
use Discord. You can you canjoin me message on discord,
which is for Vertex#8689. That'smy username. And those are
(38:15):
probably the three best ways tojust get in contact with me or
reach out to me. I'm prettyresponsive on all platforms.
Zoran Stojkovic (38:21):
Nice London I'll put those in the shownotes
thanks so much for coming on.
That was a that was a reallycool conversation and I'm sure
we'll have you on again and andkeep talking about this sort of
stuff as we explore.
Landon Gorbenko (38:32):
Absolutely, always happy to come on.
Zoran Stojkovic (38:38):
Hey, thanks for tuning in to cultivate your
culture, rate and review ourpodcast on iTunes. Any websites
and resources mentioned in thepodcast as well as the guests
information can be found on theshow www.kizo.ca/podcast. Here's
a sneak peek of what's coming upin our episode next week.
Bruno Guevremont (39:02):
How do we determine what's the culture and
is this going to serve themission statement or our goals?
And and that's how I establishedthis because I find today nobody
discusses their definition of.
Zoran Stojkovic (39:21):
tight we're recording.
Landon Gorbenko (39:23):
Yay. Go
Zoran Stojkovic (39:26):
I'm not gonna cut that out.
Landon Gorbenko (39:28):
You better not I'm famous for my finger guns
ammo is finger gun.
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