Episode Transcript
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Microphone (Wireless Microp (00:00):
Are
you eager to discover the
secrets behind successful teamdynamics in a world where
traditional structures evolving?
In this episode of StrongLeaders Serve, I talked to
INSEAD professor HenrikBressmann to explore the concept
of X Teams is crucial for highperforming teams amidst these
(00:24):
transitions.
Hendrik highlights how leaderscan create a balanced
environment of internal cohesionand external exploration to
adapt and thrive.
In addition to being a professorof organizational behavior at
INSEAD, Henrik is a recognizedexpert on on leadership, high
performance teams, andorganizational change.
(00:45):
He regularly works withcompanies and public sector
organizations embarking on largescale transformations.
His research has appeared inleading academic and practice
journals, such as the Academy ofManagement Journal, Harvard
Business Review, and TheEconomist.
He co authored the top sellingbook, X Teams, How to Build
(01:09):
Teams that Lead, Innovate, andSucceed, professor Bressman
received his Ph.
D.
from MIT.
And before entering academia, heserved in several roles as a
manager, consultant andentrepreneur.
So let's get into ourconversation, which is full of
insights that blend research,practicality and innovative
(01:30):
strategies to help you navigatethe complexity of modern team
dynamics and foster both wellbeing and performance.
I'm Terri Schmidt, executive andleadership coach at Strong
Leaders Serve.
Where we support leaders inholding the tension of caring
about the humans they work withwhile driving positive business
(01:51):
results.
And this is the Strong LeadersServe podcast.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-20 (02:11):
Welcome
to the Strong Leader Serve
podcast, Henrik.
It's so nice to have you hereand I'm really looking forward
to our conversation.
Henrik Bresman (02:19):
It is my
pleasure.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_1 (02:20):
You
know, I'd love to start off with
what was the moment orexperience that first inspired
you to study how teens operateand operate successfully?
Henrik Bresman (02:30):
Well, I would
say it's, it was actually a
number of moments very early on.
My first job after college wasin a large multinational complex
engineering company.
And one reason Why I joined thatcompany was because of a very
charismatic CEO who inspired meand and I joined this company
(02:52):
and, and pretty soon Irecognized that even for that
charismatic CEO, very little ofthe most important leadership
was actually exercised.
Through big speeches in front ofthousands of people, but rather
it was in those small moments inthe team in the top team, but
also in teams throughout theorganization.
(03:13):
And, and this.
This, this insight that, thatthe team is really the
fundamental unit of ofleadership.
That then was reinforced.
When I then moved on.
I, I realized that working inone of these huge organizations,
what wasn't actually for me.
So I moved on to the startupworld.
(03:34):
And, and then I saw the samething there that I, I saw that
whether startups succeeded orfailed, most typically, it was
not because their, their ideasweren't great ideas if they
failed.
In fact, most of the time, theirideas were absolutely fantastic
ideas.
It all failed because thingsfell through at the
implementation stage, and thatwas all because of the team.
(03:58):
And so I got really intrigued bythis.
And after a bruising experiencein the startup world, I decided
that having a real job was toodangerous.
And I went back to grad schooland became a professor.
That was a notion that I came inwith.
And so from the get go, thisintersection between leadership
and teams was something that wasvery much on my mind.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_ (04:19):
it's
fascinating how that has
changed.
I'm sure through the time thatyou've been studying and
researching and writing aboutteams, I'm curious, what are
some of the biggest changes thatyou have seen in your time?
Henrik Bresman (04:32):
So the biggest
change by far is the importance
for teams to be connected withthe outside.
So what has happened in the, inthe, couple of decades since
since I started, well, it'sactually more than a couple of
decades, but who's counting?
Since I started to think aboutmy PhD is that the external
(04:55):
world has, has changed.
The importance of the teamhasn't changed, but the context
in which in which teams operatehas changed in a number of
fundamental ways.
Why?
Well, because The world ischanging faster and faster.
I like to talk about the worldbeing in exponential change.
(05:18):
Volatility, uncertainty,complexity, ambiguity diversity.
And increasingly it's also avery asynchronous world and it's
all changing at a furious rate.
And, and this then has resultedin a number of specific changes
for, for teams.
Which is that the, the theknowledge structures in which
(05:41):
teams operate have, have changedso that the knowledge that teams
need is just constantlychanging.
And that has implications forhow teams need to work with the
outside world.
Work structures have changed sothat.
The interdependencies inorganizations and ecosystems are
just far greater, and teams needto really understand and get
(06:05):
feedback from and work withthese these, these into
dependencies.
And then and then finally powerstructures have changed.
The traditional hierarchies arenot what they used to be.
It used to be relatively easy toknow where the power lies, where
authority lies.
And now it is often far moresubtle.
More work is done throughinformal authority rather than
(06:28):
informal authority.
So all these changes have hadimplications for how power
works.
Teams work, but before I launchinto the the implications of the
changes, I thought I should stopthere.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (06:42):
Yeah,
no, it, I definitely see that.
And I, and I know, you know,This is this updated edition of
X teams that you recently putout in 2023.
And I'm curious, there may besome people out there that
haven't been exposed to theconcept of X teams, even though
the first edition was out alittle while ago, I'm curious as
(07:05):
you, as you, think about thesechanges and you think about the
concept of X teams how can youexplain that through, you A
moment where you've seen theconcept of X teams really
working.
Henrik Bresman (07:18):
I think here I
will piggyback on a study that
was.
led by my co author on the book,Deborah Ancona, who I know you
will talk to later on in thisseries.
She led this study in thetelecommunications industry
where she pursued this standardquestion, what explains team
(07:39):
performance in this industry?
And she looked specifically atsales teams in that industry.
And she tested the, the, What Iwould like to call a traditional
model, which is the model thatfocuses on on alignment of goals
and roles and processes andinterpersonal relationships,
which are absolutely criticalfor high performance and team.
(08:02):
So she looked at these variablesand then she wanted to know what
is most important and she foundthat these variables, they did
predict a few things thatpredicted how they would go.
Teams thought they performed, sosubjective performance, and it
predicted how satisfied teamswere, at least in the short
(08:25):
term, but it didn't predictobjective performance At all,
which in this case wasinarguable.
It was about sales attainment.
And that was really a criticalinsight into start to look at,
why is it that this traditionalmodel doesn't explain
performance and what doesexplain performance and what she
found.
And then I I've built on, onthis work together with Deborah
(08:49):
and also in my own work is thatthe reason why these teams.
Performance wasn't explained bythe internal activities was
because that's just part of thestory in a exponentially
changing world.
You also need to add theexternal part of the story.
And that was a real, that wassort of the springboard to, to
(09:09):
start to look at what is it thatteams do externally to perform
well in this fast changingenvironment.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_1 (09:16):
And
that external performance that
they need to do, I know is, aspart of the principles that you
put forth in the book.
I wonder if you might just gothrough them briefly for those
who aren't familiar.
Henrik Bresman (09:28):
Yeah, of course.
So, so first part of the book isto explain why the traditional
model doesn't, doesn't work,which is that they're too
internally focused.
Now the second part is exactlythis.
What is it then that highperforming teams do when they
engage with the external?
We're connecting to these threestructures that have changed.
(09:50):
First, what they do is that theyengage in sense making,
constantly going out there tomake, make sense of the world,
draw and redraw their maps,figuring out what, what, what is
the latest from the customers,what is the latest from the
competitors, the latesttechnologies that we need to be,
be aware of.
So that's, that's, that's whatwe're doing.
Number one.
And really learning from what'sgoing on out there.
(10:12):
Number two is what we callambassadorship.
That is about connecting to thepower structures, figuring out
where is where are theresources?
How can we represent the team?
How can we get on the strategicfrequency of the people, the
powerful stakeholders we need tohave on on board?
So that's number two.
And number three is what we calltask coordination.
(10:33):
That is connecting with thepower structures.
The the work structures, the ininterdependencies.
A lot of teams, they failbecause they step on other
teams' toes without knowing itbecause they're not aware of, of
these interdependencies.
So those are the three thingsthat we found fundamentally.
That teams engaged in.
Now, importantly, we foundacross very different kinds of
(10:58):
teams that this is what theydid.
Now, what it actually means willbe very different.
So, for example, if youambassadorship means one thing
when you are, say, a productdevelopment team, Microsoft,
well, then it is about havingthe ear of Satya Nadella and his
team.
But if you are a startup team.
(11:20):
What is it then?
Well, it's making sure thatyou're in in step with with
whoever is funding your company.
So in one case, it's activitywithin the organization.
In another case, it's activityacross the company boundary, but
it is still ambassadorship.
And the truth seems true for theother activities too.
(11:40):
So sometimes, sometimes,sometimes.
I find it important to toemphasize this, that the
implementation will be reallydifferent depending on where you
are, but we did find thispattern of the importance of
these three fundamentalactivities across teams.
Product development we foundedin government, in nonprofit
(12:01):
organizations and startuporganizations and consulting
firms.
So, so that, that is somethingthat, that came out very
strongly as the, the other sideof the story.
If the internal side of thestory is one side, the external
side is the other, and that isabout sensemaking,
ambassadorship and taskcoordination.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (12:21):
love,
I'm glad that you pointed that
out that it does differ across,you know, depending on where you
are seated, but it is aboutthose external activities.
1 thing that I was thinkingabout, particularly as you were
talking about how.
It could change, but theprinciple is the same.
I'm curious because I know youhighlighted in the new edition
(12:43):
that teams are facing shifts,both, you know, from being
really having really clearboundaries, like this is your
team, and this is going to beyour team for a while to more
fuzzy boundaries.
And also the physical proximitywe're looking at remote, we're
looking at hybrid.
I'm particularly interested alittle bit in, in how those
(13:04):
three.
change as well with thosechanges.
But also my interest is in howleaders can create a sense of
connection.
So maybe more internallyfocused.
So on the internal side, andthen I'm curious about the
balance between internal,external connection and
(13:27):
belonging.
In the midst of all this changeand how that relates.
Henrik Bresman (13:33):
Oh God, there's
so much there that is so
important questions.
Let me, let me start to unpackit and, and then you'll, you'll
tell me what, what I missed.
Absolutely critical is to, tochange what you do over time.
And so that, I'm so glad youasked that question because when
(13:55):
you go out, you also need to goin.
And process what, so generallywe are talking about three
phases that teams go through.
We start with exploration.
That's when you go out there andreally figuring out what the
what the world looks like.
We often talk about how it'simportant for teams to go out
before they go in.
(14:16):
They need to have a clear senseof the territory before they get
started.
Then they need to get to get towork and, and use that knowledge
and, and come up with, with aplan forward.
And this is the phase that weThat we call execution and
experimentation is more thanexecution because very often it
means learning as you executeand you do that through
(14:38):
experimenting with the knowledgethat you, that you bring into
the team.
And then the final part is whatwe call exportation.
You will notice there's a lot ofX's here.
We, we.
Part of this alliteration.
So here it's a exploration.
Execution and experimentationand then exportation.
That's when you go out there andreally educate people and what
(14:59):
you are doing and why theyshould care.
Now, it is not a sequential asit sounds.
You go in and out along alongthe way here and and and doing
this and here now I'm gettinginto the belonging part and here
I'll start out and then I'll letyou ask a follow up question
because it's actually quitecomplex.
(15:20):
So that's.
That's the theory.
You need to engage in theseexternal activities, and you
need to do it over time.
And it is the practice.
A lot of teams are doing this.
But then you ask themselves, thequestion that that prompts is,
of course, well, why don't allteams do this?
Because if you go to teams andsay, hey, you need to Go out and
(15:43):
do things outside.
They, they might say, well, youknow, we kind of do that.
We, we go out and ask for helpwhen we need it, or, or we go
out and, and show our stuffwhen, when, when it's done.
And, and so therefore, I wanna,wanna add a couple of things
here.
Which first is that if, if yougo out or to ask for help when
(16:04):
you need it, that is probablytoo late.
The idea here is that you needto go out before you get
started.
So, you know, what's going onout there, but it is more
complicated than that.
We find that very often.
The reason why teams don't dothis, even though they might
know that they need to theydon't do it.
(16:24):
And often for subconsciousreasons, because it is
disruptive to the internalcohesion, I mean, to go out
there and ask a customer whatthey really, what they really
think, I mean, the response canbe kind of punishing.
And you're a junior.
It's so, so it's, it's, it'sthe, the.
the challenge of interactingwith the external party, but
(16:46):
then it's also the fact thatwhen you're out there, then
you're not with the team.
And then you might come backwith information that is
ambiguous.
And it might contradictsomething that the, that the
team leader has said, well, thenyou need to bring it into the
conversation.
And, and, and so very oftenteams, they close off.
They don't do this because itdoes bring Preserve harmony in
(17:09):
the short run.
Remember what I said about thetelecom study, this wonderful
study that Deborah, it actuallythe traditional closed off
model.
It does.
actually predict satisfactionand harmony in the short run.
And, and that's why a lot ofteams close off.
And so I'll, I'll, I'll stopthere, but it, there is, there
(17:30):
is a contradiction.
And that's sort of what I hearimplied in your question, that
going out there, it's not, It'seasy to say, but difficult to
do.
And then, and then we can get towhat, what can teams team
leaders do to to try to preservethe inner harmony while being
able to go outside.
It's kind of paradoxicalleadership.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (17:52):
yeah,
I, I appreciate in the book, I
know you talk about pulsing,like going back and forth
between internal and external.
I think.
What I'm coming from is, youknow, personally, I've been a
part of a team that was probablya little bit too internal
focused and had a great sense ofbelonging, great sense of
connection, knew we were a team,knew who was on the team.
(18:13):
And then I've also been part ofa team where we were on multiple
different project teams, and itwasn't really clear who, who the
team was, what the identity was.
And my thinking is.
If you don't have the internalidentity, it almost makes it
tough to go external and realizethe benefits that you're talking
(18:33):
about.
So I'm curious if you've,particularly in these times
where they are fuzzy boundariesand they are remote and hybrid,
how you've seen leaders dealwith that and still create that
sense of connection.
So it was strong enough to goexternal.
Henrik Bresman (18:48):
So a couple of
things.
One, perhaps paradoxically,leaders who do that well, in a
way they, They become more heavyhanded in the sense that they
are exceedingly clear on thenorms, on the goals, on the
roles.
It isn't paradoxical because tobe able to confidently engage in
(19:12):
this kind of boundary spanning,team members do need to know
exactly what is expected andwhat they're authorized to do
and what they're not authorizedto do.
That's, That's number oneclarity.
And this is why I reallyemphasize that when I talk about
the importance of going out,it's not at the expense of of
(19:33):
the internal dynamics.
If anything, I mean, moreimportant because it's becoming
more challenging for the reasonsthat you that you mentioned.
So that's number one.
Number number two would be thatit is important to emphasize the
identity of of the team.
There is a tension because ifyou, if you emphasize that too
(19:55):
much, you can create in group,out group dynamic, which is not
helpful when you go out.
So the art is to emphasize andde emphasize.
As you go along, as you pulse,as you pick up on on this
language we used.
So that, that's one, one thing.
That's the second thing.
The third thing that I, that Ithink is really important is, is
(20:20):
the critical role of the teamleader to create for everyone,
actually.
It's everyone's role to create.
Psychological safety.
The the, the, the feltpermission among team members
that it's okay to be candidabout when you agree, when you
disagree, when you don't know,when you have questions, when
you messed up when you feelanxious about something and then
(20:42):
process this.
This is a team.
So those are, those are threethings that that comes to mind
in response to that
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_1 (20:51):
And
I appreciate that you put that,
you know, having the identityand the norms and the roles and
the goals clearly defined evenbefore psychological safety,
because I, in my experience,It's really hard to create
psychological safety if youdon't have that sense of
identity, that sense ofbelonging to start off with.
Henrik Bresman (21:12):
Yes.
I've done some research withMary Selmer Brun, who's a
professor at in Minnesotasuggesting that clarity around
goals and roles and processesand all the clarity, clarity is
around structure is really.
critical for, for psychologicalsafety.
And then of course there's adynamic, but that that's, it's
(21:34):
very hard to even start tocreate psychological safety if
people don't know the, theexpectations that they, that
they, and, and, and, you know,who's in which role and, and so
on, which of course is anotherthing that is easy to say and
difficult to do in this dynamicenvironment that, that you
describe because roles mightchange over time.
And then to be explicit about
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (21:57):
Yeah.
But, but knowing that that beingexplicit is, is a prerequisite
almost to effectively being ableto have a psychologically safe
team that can go externallyeffectively and get the results
that you talk about.
I think leaders having that inmind, at least is the first
step.
Henrik Bresman (22:18):
Yes.
And this gets to another thingthat very much has come up as
we've moved into this this morevirtual world, a lot of leaders
who are successfully leadingvirtual teams, they, they often
start their, their meetings withjust reiterating that here, this
is what we're doing.
This is our roles, somethingthat might seem a bit odd if
(22:41):
it's in a physical environment,but it's, it's important when
people sit in different parts ofthe world, the different time
zones working on differentprojects, as you said, to, to
just bring people back in.
So continuously emphasize andworking, centering people around
the goal and the purpose of theteam.
It's very
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (23:01):
Yeah,
I love that.
And I, I, when you first saidleaders have to be kind of heavy
handed at first, I wasn't surewhere you were going to go
there, but in my mind, whatyou're speaking to.
having that sense of intentionand you know, and a little
sidebar.
I think there are a lot ofcompanies who are thinking now,
well, we just need to bringeveryone back together and that,
(23:23):
you know, I think you talk aboutdecontextualized socialization
that we're, we're going throughnow and, and they're trying to,
you know, bring people together.
So we don't have that challengeanymore.
But without that, in that sameintention of getting people on
the same page in terms of goalsand roles, physical proximity in
(23:44):
my mind is, is not going to havethe impact that.
It's purported to have.
Henrik Bresman (23:52):
it's a really
important question.
Here the jury is still out interms of how to do this.
I, it may be that you refer to apaper I wrote with Debra and
another colleague of mine, MarkMortensen, who is a professor at
NCIAD, and he's doing somefascinating work here.
Look, looking at why you wouldor would not want to have people
(24:13):
physically in the office.
And he points out, he's come upwith something of a continuacy
model where he looks at, well,it depends on what it is that
you're trying to, to achieve.
If it's all about just gettingthe task done, well, then it's
simply, well, what, when do youneed people to be together to be
most, most effective?
(24:36):
And when is it more effectivethat they are.
At home, you know, they say timethey can focus.
They're not interrupted.
And that's where mostconversations tend to be.
So I met a lot of, of thoughtfulleaders who really hone, they
hone it down to this, that, thatthey say, well, you know, the,
the stuff you can doindependently, you can do at
home, but then the, this is thework that Transcribed You need
(24:59):
to collaborate to get done, thenyou're at work.
It's not that easy because it'salso the cultural dimension, as
Mark points out.
And it does, whether you know itor not, whether you like it or
not, whether you do it onpurpose or not it will change
the culture if people are athome more than at work.
In in the office, they spendmore time with their family and
(25:21):
then that the context.
I'm not saying, you know, I'mnot valuing this.
I'm just saying that that's whatit is.
And you need to be mindful of ofthat.
It's it's a and here, as I said,research.
It's a lot of exciting researchdone now.
And there are really, I can'tgive you any answers of how
(25:42):
exactly to balance this, partlybecause it's Research is
ongoing.
It's sort of new post pandemic.
Partly because it depends somuch on the context of your
particular team.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_1 (25:53):
I'm
curious.
Cause I know you look atdiversity too, you know, as
teams become more diverse how inthis model, how can they
capitalize on that diversity?
Henrik Bresman (26:07):
yeah.
So it is.
Implied, of course, in this ideaof X teams that you, you bring a
lot of diverse information anddiverse people into the team and
and to be able to deal with thatdiversity, you need to have
internal diversity that sort ofmatches the external.
(26:31):
Diversity.
And so how do you deal with thatdiversity?
I'm now working quite a bit onthis, but let me let me share
one study I did.
I wrote an article with.
Amy Edmondson, who is the personI would say inarguably most
associated with this idea ofpsychological safety.
(26:53):
And what we found in that studyintrigued us, which was that we
looked at a number of teams.
This was in the pharmaceuticalindustry.
And we looked at diversityspecifically.
And, and we found that Onaverage, diverse teams did a
little bit worse thanhomogeneous teams.
(27:15):
Now, this is a, is a surprise tomany.
When I go out, I do keynotes andI often, before I reveal this
result, I say, well, what do youthink?
Diverse or homogeneous teamswere on average, which one does
better and between 80 and ahundred percent.
Well, the diverse, of course,because that's what they've
(27:37):
heard and maybe that's alsotheir experience.
And so when they, they see thisresult, they get very concerned.
Am I saying that diversity isnot good?
No, that's not what I'm saying,saying at all.
In fact, I, I, Always rush tosay no.
Wait.
First, I need to say that.
Don't now take this result andthink to yourself.
You're gonna go back and fireeveryone on your team and hire a
(27:59):
bunch of people are just likeyou because then I what I
usually do when I talk aboutthis, I show the detailed data
and what you see is that everysingle one of the high
performing teams are arediverse.
So then the question becomeswhat is it that what is what is
it that that is?
(28:20):
These teams do these teams thatare diverse and perform best.
Rather.
Well, so I should say, why is itthat sometimes diversity can
pull down the averageperformance?
Well, it is because diversitycomes with the challenges of
communicating and coordinating.
And translating it across crossdifferences.
(28:41):
And therefore, there are somefailures where teams are not
able to walk across these thesethese fault lines.
And so, so what do these teamsdo that that do best with
diversity?
Well, it goes back topsychological safety to create
that.
So if, if you look at teams thathas an above average.
(29:02):
Level of psychological safety.
Well, then you do have that.
You do have that positiverelationship between diversity
and performance of people whosay, well, I think it's a
diverse team.
Their intuition is absolutelyright.
It's absolutely correct.
What I'm saying is that it maynot be true.
It is actually necessary to havediversity for for breakthrough
(29:25):
performance, but it may not besufficient.
You also need a psychologicalsafety for people to actually
share their diverse opinions,experiences and perspectives to
get to that, to really capturethe magic of diverse teams and
get to that higher, higherperformance.
So let me summarize that.
(29:46):
I feel that was a.
I slipped into professor modethere and started to profess.
That's why I want people to takeaway is It is necessary to have
diversity to get to a high levelof performance, but bringing a
group of diverse people togetheris not enough.
You also need psychologicalsafety to, to realize the
potential.
(30:07):
One more thing because I knowyou're, you're, you're
interested in issues of, of of,mental health and well being as
well.
Not only did these teams thathave psychological safety at a
higher level, not only did theyperform better, they did better,
they felt better too.
So both instrumental outcomesand mental health outcomes were
(30:28):
better for these teams that werediverse and had a certain level
of psychological safety.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_1 (30:35):
no,
that's great.
It goes along with what I knowyou talk about, wealth and well
being.
Having those two pieces in placeand it makes sense too.
And, and I could see how if youdo have a more diverse team, it,
you have to be even moreintentional about the actions
you take around creating thatpsychological safety.
Henrik Bresman (30:54):
Yes.
Yes.
And, and and, and then, ofcourse, the million dollar
question is how do you build uppsychological safety?
I don't know if there's room forthat in this, this episode.
But since I asked the question,let me just give sort of a few
tips.
Maybe some of your listenershave not really wrestled with
this.
So a simple three steps.
Process would be to start out bysetting the stage and have a
(31:17):
good conversation.
What do you expect in terms ofuncertainty?
What do you know?
What you don't know?
And relatedly, you know, what,what do you expect in terms of
failure rates?
Because if, if some people inthe team assume that no, we
should know everything and weshouldn't fail, Then you can't
even start to have psychologicalsafety because no one will talk
(31:38):
about their, their failures andtheir, the things that they're
uncertain about.
And then the second step is thento invite participation.
This is really where inclusiveleadership comes in.
And as a leader, it is importantto really invite people in and
say, well, I need to hear fromyou, Terry, you're out there.
You see things that I don't and,and Particularly in a virtual
(31:59):
environment.
This is really important.
And when you do that, it doestwo things.
It lowers the psychological costof speaking up on it.
Also, perhaps less obviously, itraises the psychological cost of
being silent.
Because if I look at you here onthe screen and say, Terry, I
need to hear from you, it wouldbe odd if you sat there with the
(32:21):
screen off and didn't sayanything.
You probably would feel that youdid say something.
That's that's number two.
And then finally, you need to beYou need to then respond
productively to, to what thencomes in response.
Easy.
If everything that people saysis pure gold, but sometimes, you
know, people say dumb stuff.
(32:41):
And if you say, well, well, thenyou, of course you will kill
psychological safety rightthere.
So it's important then to, to beable to separate, you know,
appreciation for the courage ittakes to speak up and then a
conversation about the value ofthe conversation.
So set the stage, invite.
Invite participation and thenrespond in a productive.
(33:02):
way.
That's a starting point.
That's another.
I'm in the business of easy tosay and difficult to do.
And that's that's easy to sayand difficult to do,
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025_181 (33:08):
I
think that's the whole world of
people leadership.
So I don't think you're alonethere but thank you for sharing
those because those, those aretips that I, I hadn't heard
before about, you know, sayingupfront what we expect the
failure rate to be.
That's, that's a new one that Icould definitely see how that
would.
Henrik Bresman (33:25):
You know, I need
to get credit here.
I, I work a lot with Amy and Ithink many of her thoughts I
should credit her for.
So just want to make sure.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (33:34):
Yeah,
definitely.
Well, you know, As I mentioned,our listeners are really what I
call compassionate drivenleaders.
Kind of goes along like wetalked about before we started
recording with your wealth andwellbeing.
I'm curious if you had one pieceof advice to give them to
survive in this ever changingworld and, and hopefully thrive
(33:57):
what would it be?
Henrik Bresman (33:59):
Yes, one thing,
one.
thing.
So it would be it would be this.
Know your leadership signature.
We actually write about this inin the book.
What do we mean by that?
The idea is that.
Just as every one of us we haveour hand signature that is
(34:23):
unique.
Every one of us have our uniqueway of leading and that is our
leadership signature.
And it's absolutely critical asa starting point to know who you
are, who you are not.
What are your strengths?
What are, what are yourlimitations?
Often there's a discrepancybetween your intention and, and,
(34:44):
and who you actually are andcome across as a leader.
It's absolutely critical to toknow this, because if you know
this, You, You, can come up witha plan for how to develop in a
direction that, that you wouldlike to develop also
importantly.
And here's the, where thecompassion comes in with your
(35:05):
team members, you cancommunicate this to others in
your team.
And that turns out to beabsolutely critical in this fast
moving environment.
That is so that generates somuch anxiety that the team
members are.
can be sure that they know thatyou know who you are and who you
(35:28):
are not.
So they have a stability intheir relationship with you and
that contains anxiety.
And that's sort of the, the, theportal to, to all the other
things that go into tocompassion.
Then you can, then you can beauthentically compassionate.
If you're on the same page as asyour team about who you are.
(35:50):
As a leader.
Does that make
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (35:52):
makes
a lot of sense and it aligns
right with our leadershipdevelopment model and strong
leaders serve is ground grow,give and that ground phase is
could be rephrased as knowingyour leadership signature.
And and the stability piecewe've talked about that a lot
how that helps.
Team members to have trust, haveto deal with changes when
(36:15):
they're going around that theyknow that they can come back to
that core and in the spirit of Xteams too, as you're going out
and going in and pulsing betweenthe two, knowing that you have
that stable core in your leader.
That is going to be there andyou know how they are going to
act in different situations.
I can see that being immenselypowerful.
(36:36):
Well,
Henrik Bresman (36:36):
Yes.
Ability.
Yeah, it's a really importantword.
Thank you for putting that inthere.
That's very, very
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (36:43):
yeah,
well, thank you for that.
Henrik Bresman (36:48):
Well, it's a
it's a challenge, but starting
point of knowing who you are inthis
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-202 (36:52):
Right?
Another easier said than done,but definitely worth doing.
Henrik Bresman (36:56):
Yes.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-2025 (36:58):
Well,
I know, speaking of your
leadership, that's great.
signature.
I know you also have asimulation exercise and a
feedback instrument that also goalong with the book.
So, and we didn't get to diginto hardly any of the book.
So I definitely encourageeveryone to get the book, check
that out as well as check outthe additional tools that you
(37:19):
have available.
Henrik Bresman (37:21):
Yes.
Let me put in a plug for that.
We are actually quite proud ofit.
When it comes to leadershipsignature, we have developed a
360 instrument that can help youdiscover your leadership
signature.
With strong emphasis on thisfast moving context and your
ability to engage in sensemaking as an individual leader,
but also as a team member and ateam team leader.
(37:43):
And then the the simulationcalled exchange where we.
put teams in a very challengingenvironment to try to work as an
X Team and then focusing on thelearning then in a safe,
psychologically safe environmentrather than the performance.
We love that simulation.
We hope that that you do too,listener, if you, if you try it
(38:07):
and the way you you You findresources for those instruments
is that you go to xlead.
co and then you find all theinformation about that.
teri-schmidt_1_01-16-20 (38:20):
knowing
what, what is in the book, I
haven't had the chance toexplore the other two, but
knowing the checklist and theresearch, it's a really nice
balance of you know, deepresearch and practicality and
case studies.
And so I can imagine howbeneficial the other tools are.
So we'll definitely make surethat gets linked in the show
notes.
(38:40):
If people are interested inlearning more, even more about
your work, where's the bestplace for them to go?
Henrik Bresman (38:47):
Well, given that
the book is reasonably fresh,
I'd say that.
And then there are a couple of,um, the one that I mentioned
with Amy in the Harvard Reviewwhich just Google on my name.
I'm easy to find.
And then there is a SloanManagement Review article where
I and Debra expand on the XTeams concept.
(39:10):
And then we also have a we havea newsletter called X News on
LinkedIn.
So if you if you send an invite.
To to me and just mentioned thatyou've listened to this show.
Then I will certainly I willaccept your your invite and then
you go get access to the
teri-schmidt_1_01-16 (39:28):
Excellent.
Well, those are, those are greatresources and we'll make sure
they get linked so they're easyto find for everyone, but thank
you again for your time todayand I know it's morning for you
and evening for me, but it's,it's been just a very energizing
conversation and thank you forthe work that you do to make our
workplaces more well and morewealthy as well.
Henrik Bresman (39:51):
Well, thank you.
I cannot think of a better wayto start today here.
So thank you very much.
It really is my pleasure.
Microphone (Wireless Micr (40:01):
Well,
thank you again to Henrik for
coming on the Strong LeadersServe podcast, and we're excited
that he is actually going to beback another conversation later
this year.
As you go forth from thisconversation, I invite you to
continue exploring your ownleadership signature this week,
especially as the changingnature of teams becomes more
dynamic and interconnected.
(40:23):
Reflect on who you are as aleader, your strengths and your
areas of growth to navigatethese complexities and foster a
more effective and cohesiveteam.
Thank you for joining us today,and I encourage you to embrace
these insights as you lead withintention and compassion in the
days ahead.