Never Lead Alone: Unlocking Collective Genius Through Teamship | Keith Ferrazzi

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Jonathan Fields: [00:00:12] So what if you could ditch that outdated model of top down leadership and instead create an environment where anyone can catalyze a collective vision, where every voice is empowered to contribute their unique brilliance toward extraordinary outcomes? Well, today we're rethinking what it truly means to lead in the modern age. My guest is Keith Ferrazzi. He was on a mission to really initiate a profound shift from rigid hierarchies to an inclusive new paradigm he calls teamship. So in this candid conversation, Keith draws from over 20 years coaching fortune 500 companies to reveal the ten critical mindset and practice shifts required to transform how teams operate. So you'll discover unconventional approaches to redefining who your team is. Establishing new social contracts and really co elevating and unleashing more inclusive collaboration formats. Keith is a renowned executive team coach, founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight and author, and his latest book, Never Lead Alone Ten Shifts From Leadership to Teamship, draws on two decades of research and field work to provide a revolutionary roadmap for the future of collaborative work. So listen in to be inspired and equipped with simple yet practical and powerful practices that you can immediately adopt to catalyze change and step into your power as an initiator to start shaping the team driven world that you want to live in. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. I'm. Really fascinated by your focus these days on kind of redefining the notion of how we show up at work, of leadership, of what teams are and aren't, and really stepping into a contrarian point of view in a lot of different ways that elevates humanity. I think a nice starting point for us might be to really explore when we have a conversation about teams. What are we actually talking about here?

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:02:20] Mm. Love it. You know, Jonathan, I think that's probably the biggest problem that we have to overcome in our world and in the workplace, which is we think of teams as org charts and we think of teams and leaders as authority and the kind of stuff that has to be granted to us. The reality is, every one of us listening can be a leader in this world, of a group of people that we're working with, and every one of us can redefine, first of all, who is our team so that we can be much more abundant if we have a vision of something that should be better or different, those that we reach out to in order to co-create that together. Those individuals are our team. Now. They may not be even aware that they're on our team. And the reality is, I always say that the first person you invite into your team, you should be inviting them into their team so that it's a real collective and a co-creation. And then the next question is, what is what I call the social contract of how we work together? We should be working together with care. We should be working together with a commitment to what I call co-elevation collaborating, but lifting each other up and lifting each other up in terms of our energy and our relationship, but also in terms of our accountability, we should be collectively agreeing that we're going to hold each other accountable to our greatest.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:03:38] We're going to coach each other. We're going to give each other feedback, right? We're actually going to be each other's coaches, holding each other accountable, lifting each other up and achieving things that we would not be able to achieve by ourselves. Now, I know that's a lot, right? But that's the that's the vision of what we should be, how we should be walking around the world so that every one of us can create an environment around ourselves, living in the world that we want to live in on a daily basis in the workplace. And if we do that, I think we'll start teaching ourselves how we should be living in society as a whole. To your point, right? I work a lot with how my mission is to change the way we work and have that spill out into change the way society behaves. So I don't know if that's a good overview, and we can certainly dive into the practices and the tips to get there.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:26] Yeah, I mean, I love that, you know, and because fundamental to what you're saying is this notion of not making a distinction between a capital L leader and the people that they lead, it's sort of saying like, no, we're all invited into this experience. We all have the opportunity to lead in some way, shape or form. Whether you have the title of being a leader or a manager or a boss, or whether you are simply surrounding yourself with a group of people in some sort of collective effort together. Yeah. That you can show up in a particular way and it's less about. It's more about that and less about any sort of, you know, established hierarchy.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:05:00] The way I designed the book and first of all, for everybody, I hope you'll appreciate this. I fought with my publisher around it. The book is crazy small, you know, is that old Mark Twain quote that said, if I had had more time, this letter would have been shorter. Well, I had 20 years to research and write this book. I've been coaching teams for 20 years now, and this book is the consummate collective of the practices. And what I believe is that there's ten critical shifts in how we should be living our lives in teams. Ten critical shifts. So every chapter is one of those shifts. But most importantly, every chapter just gives you some simple practices that you should use so that you can begin to show up and change your life through the way in which you collaborate with others. The very beginning we have already talked about it. Redefine who your team is. Your team is a mindset, not an org chart. Your team or those you work with in order to achieve extraordinary things. Not necessarily who reports to you or who you report to. So that's number one. You know, what are you trying to achieve and who are your teams? Because we have different KPIs. We have different things. We're doing each one we were we are shepherds of a team. Next point is, and I think this is the most important of the shifts, it's chapter three is we've got to define a contract amongst us where we're not going to let each other fail. Now, what I mean by that is there might be an old social contract among people working together. Well, I would never challenge you in the open that would be throwing you under the bus. How about a different contract? We'll never hold anything back because we refuse to let each other fail. Candor, transparency, getting it all on the table in a healthy and productive way. That's how greatness is achieved.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:48] So let me let me dive into that one a little bit more also, because some people will listen to that and say, okay, so that makes sense to me. And I wish I worked in a place where we could just show up, say what was on our minds, and have an open conversation about it. Then you'll have some other folks who hear that who will have had work experiences where that was the culture, but the way that it manifested on a practical day to day basis was through toxicity and aggression. So talk to me about this dance. We're talking about openness and candor and and being willing to be challenged and challenged, but at the same time not tipping into this world of no, this is just going from challenge in the name of constructive outcomes and collective elevation to just aggression.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:07:29] So chapter four talks about building the relationship foundation and perhaps on a show like yours, with an audience like yours who already believes that we deserve better in the workplace and we deserve a healthier, more embracive relationship with work and the people around us. Maybe I would have flipped those. Maybe I would have flipped those and said, let's start with, how do we get very proactive at building the kind of relationships among us where we're committed to each other, where we have empathy and care for one another? And what are the practices to open oneself up to do that? How do we build a, a commitment to, to shared resilience and and the belief that as a team, we own each other's energy? We won't let people struggle alone. Right. So that happens to be chapters four and chapters five. The reason I led with candor, which one could argue, is you need to build the relational foundation first so that then we can say, okay, now that we respect each other, now that we care for each other, let's be candid because we don't want to let each other fail. The reason I led with candor is because most businesses are much more philic of this idea of a challenge culture right now. You talk about how do we make sure that a challenge culture doesn't turn into working with a group of assholes, right? Ray Dalio wrote a book called principles, and from what I understand it, it's not a particularly pleasant place to work.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:09:05] What I would highly recommend is that you build the relationships first. You gain the care, the respect, the empathy, and then you begin the candor, which you as a foundation you build upon. However, I also think that we have the capacity to do candor in a structured way which inevitably builds in the respect. So I created a process that I called stress testing. After having observed many high performing teams that have those challenge cultures, and what I do is I say, listen, let's say Jonathan is finishing a thread of work that he's been he's been in the middle of, and he wants to get some input from the team, and we want to make sure that that is challenging, clear, you know, elevating input. So Jonathan would maybe shoot a video of ten minutes and say, here's what I've achieved, here's what I'm struggling and here's where I'm going. And the agreement would be that everybody would open a Google doc and write the answers, the following three answers. Here's Jonathan what you might be missing. I want to challenge you on this. Here's an idea that I want to offer you in some innovation, and I'd like to offer some help. And here's how. Now the contract amongst us needs to be that that input being given to Jonathan is just generous data. It's just input. And for for our lives, we've always gotten feedback in the form of a directive. A parent gives you direct, gives you feedback.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:10:36] They're telling you what to do a teacher, a coach, a boss when they give you feedback, they're telling you what you do. When a peer gives you feedback in this situation, they're just giving you input. There's a big difference there. And if you can divorce the obligation that someone has to do something, they can gather all this data fluidly and then do what they feel needs to be done. Putting some guardrails and structure around candor is incredibly valuable to allow that candor to be healthier. Um, there's a there's a practice in the book called a candor break in the middle of a meeting. You ask the team, hey, what's not being said that should be said in this room? Go into breakout rooms, have a small conversation, report back small breakout rooms, convert. The conversation has an 85% higher degree of psychological safety. Comfort people are more truth telling. A meeting of 12 people. Four people think they're heard, go into breakout rooms or do more asynchronous collaboration before you get into the room. Ten people think that they're heard. So the the practices that I'm giving you give you guardrails of respect. They give you guardrails of of how to a simple hygiene around candor as opposed to, you know, a team that might not have those relationships may be kind of competitive. And throwing this candor out into the room could feel eviscerating in some ways. And we want to try to avoid that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:06] Yeah, I love those guardrails and appreciate that one curiosity around the what you described as the the shared feedback document approach. When you do this just on a practical level, are you creating one document and asking all members to share their input on the same document so that everyone can see what everyone else is offering?

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:12:26] Yes, I am. Um, because ultimately the dream would be to have all this dialogue happen in the meeting. There's two problems with that. One, we just don't have the same psychological safety in a group then than we would otherwise. And by the way, some of us are introverts. Some of us need a just a tick of contemplation time, and we're not just going to instantly respond with brilliance. And the reality is, if it's an important conversation, nobody has time to be thoroughly heard as a group. So if you if you shift the meeting and that's chapter six called meeting shifting, if you shift the collaboration from the meeting to an asynchronous document, then people have time. They can be reflective. They generally now can take an assignment which says, we need you to challenge what you just saw. Now it's an assignment and people are more likely to do it. I wrote an article in fortune magazine recently. Just, you know, I tell you, culture change is not that tough. It really isn't. We just have to adopt new work practices. And so I'm giving you ten shifts and in every shift, a set of new work practices which can radically change your culture. It really is a simpler format and a formula than that. I think people have have faced, because a lot of us don't really change the work. We deal with these ideas at the conceptual level and concepts don't end up changing our lives. There's a wonderful phrase that that I view as an indictment of this focus on mindset alone, which is you don't think your way to a new way of acting. You act your way to a new way of thinking. So this idea of concepts and mindset change, well, how are you going to change a mindset? Practice new things and you wake up and your mindset has changed because the practices are achieving better outcomes and it actually works.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:14] Yeah. So I love this focus on the shift from candor or from, you know, conflict avoidance to candor. One of the other shifts that you explore is this notion of, you know, it's kind of become pop lore that you should create a culture where, you know, it's an open office. There are just tons of desks all over, and it was based around this notion of serendipitous interaction. You know, like because if people have to pass each other in the hallway to go here and there, you're going to bump each other, you're going to have this quick conversation and all. It's going to spark some sort of thing. You challenge that.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:14:48] Well, what happens when you go virtual during a pandemic? Right. Or what happens when you come back and now you're not five days a week in the office? Or just what happens when you've got a global team? You don't have that serendipity. And therefore, instead of just focusing on serendipity, bonding, which I think is our old school way of thinking about happenstance, let's actually engineer this. And when you engineer it, there's different components. Some people are you need to engineer for the relationship, you know, a wonderful practice I like to do once a week with my team is where is your energy and why? On a scale of 0 to 5, you could ask it a little bit more directly where on a scale of 0 to 5, where is your energy and what's bringing it down? What's bringing it down? And then at the same time, you you get more inclusive collaboration through this asynchronous collaboration where instead of just 12 people in a meeting, four people are heard, you have 30 people opining on a topic, giving their best insight that everybody gets to read. And wow, brilliance really shows up from people who would have never been invited to the meeting otherwise.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:15:57] Right. So I feel like we have we and this is really a frustration of mine. For decades we have over under indexed on the curiosity and the engineering of work. We just keep doing work the same way we've always done it. And I was really hopeful that the pandemic, with all of its, uh, loss would bring a win, which is a leaping forward. But it didn't. We went we moved from boardrooms to zoom rooms and back to boardrooms again. Um, now, just two days a week instead of three. Part of the problem is we, you know, all big changes in work have been brought about by engineers. Functionally, manufacturing engineers brought TQM and Six Sigma, software engineers brought agile. And today we need to reengineer white collar collaboration. And we've given it to a body HR that typically just engineers doesn't engineer anything. It's a policy body. So they're saying, well, we need to be 2 or 3. They're debating 2 or 3 days in the office. Let's really reengineer the work.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:59] Yeah, I mean, that makes so much sense to me. And you referenced a couple of times now, also the notion of the way that we can change, sort of like the mechanics of interaction and contribution to also acknowledge the fact that we're all wired differently. Like I raised my hand when somebody says, where are the introverts in the room? Actually, I probably don't raise my hand. I kind of take a step back and just kind of like, I'm quiet in the room. That's funny. Um, and, you know, I remember Susan Cain is a dear old friend of mine when she came out with the went quiet and it just it blew the socks off. And there was, you know, like millions of copies sold. It was because all of a sudden you're giving voice to people, millions and millions of people who have been told or assumed in some way, shape or form that there's something wrong with them. It's it's broken to be the way they are. And often in those meetings you're talking about, you know, the dynamic is I'm just going to be quiet because I'm overwhelmed. I'm overstimulated. I don't have the wiring to just jump in and offer what's on my mind. And also, oftentimes I need a beat to sit with this. Like, I want to say something really valuable here, which means I need a little bit of time to actually contribute.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:18:02] God forbid that you want to be thoughtful. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:05] So it's really interesting because what you're really suggesting is like, let's create mechanisms to allow for people of every wiring in the way that they contribute to actually feel like there's value that they can add and that they're comfortable adding it in a way which lets them show up.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:18:21] I want to bring up a subject which I don't understand, but it seemingly has has become a sensitive subject which is the subject of DNI diversity, Equity and inclusion. If I look at the the book that really influenced me years ago was Pat Lencioni's book Five Dysfunctions of a team. Right. And I tip my hat to Pat and the book right at the beginning of this book and say, I picked up that journey that Pat was on, so inspired by the need to do more research on teams, not just employee engagement, not just on enterprise, but really at the team level. And but it's you know, a lot's changed in 20 years. And you know, we talked you and I have already talked about virtual and hybrid teams and work. What's the formula for that. Well this is a book updated on that. But another one that has changed is is a different focus on diversity. Now that said, if you really break DNI and B belonging down um, the inclusion piece is should be really marbled into our work, and I feel that the DNI community may have missed the opportunity to embed DNI into team performance. I went around and asked 26 leaders of DNI if you were coaching a team over a six month period to be the highest emblem of what you believe a successful DNI team would do, what would you do? And they didn't have an answer because the DNI function tends to look at equity at the enterprise level and numbers and metrics, and then they look at, um, broad programs.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:20:02] I want to know, how do you turn a team into a more inclusive and curious team that achieves breakthrough innovation outcomes because of its perspective on diversity, where HR is thinking about re-engineering, how what they're doing in talent, and they go and grab the CIO to be a part of the team, right? So that they can truly leap forward five years in an AI enabled world, as opposed to be being looking at the problem from the lens that we have. So the inclusion and making sure that, like you suggested a second ago, all voices are heard. This is so powerful and important. I bring it up only because there is a chapter in the book about this. But what I realized when I was writing that chapter is so much of the work was embedded in other chapters a sense of belonging, a sense of intimacy and care, and how that's just embedded should be embedded in how a team treats each other with its social contract is as well with each other. So I'm excited about maybe giving this movement a slightly different angle to hold on to than perhaps it's had in the past.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:08] Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to really focus on, like, how do we how do we look on a more granular level? Not that policy doesn't matter, but how do we look on a, you know, a one defined Define group working on a particular project or outcome day to day. Like what do we do within that context? To let everybody feel seen and heard and show up and also at the same time drive the meta goal, drive innovation, drive, whatever is the best possible outcome for the individuals and for the the whatever the end outcome is.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:21:38] I would argue that, and this is another perhaps bold statement, but I would argue that most leaders don't really believe that significant diversity of inputs will drive better outcomes. I don't really think that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:54] Do you really think that?

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:21:55] I really do.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:56] That seems bizarre to me.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:21:57] Because what I see in my coaching of teams are the natural reaction is to keep the team tight, to innovate in a small group so others can't water down the innovation. That's the mindset. Like two pizza rule. You know, the the Amazon early rule was like, let's only have enough people in a in a team that can eat two pizzas. Well, what happens to the constituency of 20 individuals that really have a horse in the race that because they're not in the room early on, can't really onboard to this new way of thinking and working? So, you know, I really do believe that there's there is broken mindset around broader collaboration being slower and more inclusive, collaboration being consensus oriented neither, neither of which is true. You can get bold input from a large group of people that as long as the social contract is you give us your boldest input, but we're going to assess it and we're not going to try to placate everybody to come up with milquetoast. Instead, we're going to take bold ideas and land a bold solution. And at the same time, we're not going to use sequential meetings where we come out of a meeting and then maybe the meeting after the meeting and people are DMing themselves, it's like, that's that's worse. We're going to have a bold collaboration asynchronously in the cloud, and then we're going to come to only the meetings of the people who need to be there to land the plane, and we'll get this all done faster. This, by the way, is the the way that these kids coming out of Stanford starting disruptive unicorn companies, this is how they work, right? And no wonder they're putting on the heels juggernauts of corporations that have been around for a century.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:47] Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a classic innovator's dilemma, you know. But but now we have tools to move so much faster. And you referenced we had tools.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:23:54] We've had tools for a while. We've ignored them. Right. The Google stack is a genius collaboration.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:59] Stack 100%, you know, and nobody uses it. Part of what you talk about also is not just the tools but process. You know, you make an interesting reference to agile. You know, agile is a development philosophy that really comes out of engineering. And like, how do we develop a solution to product really quickly? By iterating through and inviting the end user in to get feedback as much as possible. But you offer this sort of like invitation. Like, what if we actually shift agile not just to product development, but to almost look at it as a way to operate teams and groups?

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:24:29] It is it is the operating system of work today. And look, if agile was created in an environment where volatility and change allowed you to keep up and keep pace in software development. So now let's talk about agile. You know in a sales organization. So I'm a sales rep. What if I'm an independent sales rep I need to have a one week sprint of what I'm going to try to achieve this week. And at the end of that sprint, I'm going to pause and I'm going to represent to the people around. This is what I've achieved. Here's what I've learned, here's where I've struggled at these key accounts, etc. and here's what I'm planning to do to get back on track this next month or this next week, whatever the sprint size is. And then the group gives them and stress tests, the group says. Same. Same formula. Here's what you're missing. Here's an idea. You know, I could help here. Now, all of a sudden, an individual has used agile as an operating system to make sure that we can pivot and be just that, agile and stay on track. But not only that, but stay on track with bold insights from a broader group of individuals that is better than the person would come up with themselves. So it's just so obvious to me that we should all be working in agile and or at least the basic agile. I'm not talking about all of the cumbersome spreadsheets and that kind of stuff.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:45] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:25:47] I forget was that chapter six? No, that's.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:49] One of the later ones. Yeah. But it is, it's really interesting. I mean, like literally the name of the philosophy is agile. You're like, why wouldn't we want that to be the way that we all show up in everything that we do? And the context is trying to do really good big things. I think a.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:26:03] Part of it is when original was originally designed and developed, it was it was designed for software and had a lot of documentation involved.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:12] It was very complex and it was complex.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:26:14] Yeah. And then when it was exported, there was a really good book. I don't know, it was Bain or BCG. I think it was Bain that did. And I read it and I was like, oh my God. It's like, yes, I get it. But this would be it would take more time and resources to do this than I think the benefit I would get out of it. And so I think we overindexed on stuff. We created this cumbersome, cumbersome layer. I just wanted to take in the book the simple agile practices and principles that we could all use and adopt easily. And I love that you honed in on that because it's one of my favorite. You know, the book, I think traditional leadership stuff doesn't talk about tools and process, traditional leadership, even. You go back to The Five Dysfunctions. It's a behavioral book. I really believe that the world we're living in today is a set of behaviors which I break down into what I call high return practices. It's a set of tools that we use to enable all of this, and processes that we need to adapt and adapt to, that will really allow us to live in a very volatile world. So I think leadership is much more than, you know, when people just talk about mindsets.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:27] Yeah. And I think part of that, I wonder often is because there's been this underlying assumption around leadership is sure, sure, sure, we have the trainings that can teach anyone how to be a leader. But then there's this, like under like almost like unspoken culture, which I think often says, no, there are leaders and there are people who are not leaders, and the leaders are just they just know. So we're going to. Well, I feel like so much management and leadership training and it's along the lines of lip service rather than, you know, so well.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:27:58] But look, I kind of agree in that there are natural born leaders. Right. But just as I'm sure there's natural born musicians. But I promise you, I could learn to be a better violinist than I am today.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:12] Yeah, 100%.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:28:13] Right. And and to. The only way to do that, though, is to break it down into the practices that are grounded in context. How do I not just do? What do I do in meetings? Okay, great. Now how do I not just do in meetings? How do I use async? How do I build relationships with a virtual team? These are all new practices in a context. And it's and it needs to be prescriptive. Yeah. And people can choose. It's not it's not rigorously prescriptive in that you know it's it's confining. But I want to show people that simple little practices can change culture. I wrote an article in in fortune magazine a couple of weeks ago, which just took one of my practices called stress testing, which I've I brought up a couple of times here. It's when somebody presents what they've done, where they're struggling, where they're going, and the team beats it up and says, here's my challenges for you. Here's my ideas for you. Here's my offer of help for you. And that simple process can reboot culture like that. We want to challenge culture. You've just turned it into an assignment. You want a supportive culture. You've turned it into an assignment. You want a creative culture, a growth culture. Create a a mindset of being curious culture. You've just turned it into an assignment. So turning simple cultural attributes into assigned practices, it's not that tough. This is not that tough. I'm really excited about, you know, given this roadmap out to the world.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:41] Yeah. So let's say somebody is sort of listening along and nodding, saying, this all sounds really fascinating, really interesting. What would you offer as an invitation? An initial invitation, a sort of a first step into exploring these ideas?

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:29:54] Well, look, I mean, the book was written as a chapter by chapter guide for you and your group of people you're working with. So I would offer just that if you want, by the way, to just go on Amazon or wherever and buy it super. If you want to go to my site. Keith Ferrazzi. Com you can buy in bulk like a team of people. Buy it together at a slightly discounted rate that my publisher gives me. But more importantly, I give you a set of videos for free that will allow you to, you know, share a little bit of my voice on top of the book. But the book itself is it. I mean, I you know, I spent 20 years. This is the roadmap for how we coach. You know, we get paid a very healthy fee to coach teams through transformation. Have done so for quite some time. And this is it. This is the guide I would give a coach if I were teaching a coach how to coach a team or teach a team how to coach itself, which is the intention here.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:48] Mm. Great. Thank you so much. Really enjoy the conversation. Yeah.

Keith Ferrazzi: [00:30:51] Me too, very much. Thank you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:55] And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It'll open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.