Episode 31 · 22 March 2023 · 1:08:20
What is the Superstar Effect? (And is it Damaging Your Business?)
What is the Superstar Effect? (And is it Damaging Your Business?)
0:000:00
Tip: click any timestamp below to jump there and keep playing.
Enjoying the show? Subscribe for free
Chapters & timestamps
Click any timestamp to jump the player to that moment.
News roundup — Bare Minimum Monday, Women's History Month & WSJ on office friendships
news roundup#news#bare-minimum-monday#womens-history-month#office-friendships
What exactly is the superstar effect?
The psychology of being in the presence of greatness
The impact on team dynamics and psychological safety
High-performance teams in 2023 — what's changed
Personality and behaviour — the juicy bit
How to help superstars become team players
Are superstars tough to manage?
The cost of a toxic superstar — 4 full-time employees
How to spot a toxic superstar at recruitment stage
Isn't personality assessment just pseudoscience?
Building diverse teams — moving beyond clones
Practical recruitment advice for busy leaders
Psychological safety and setting ground rules
Don't protect your culture — evolve it
Audax Generation's immersive team experiences
The 6 things we've learned — recap
Show notes
The Superstar Effect: Why Hiring A+ Talent Might Be Damaging Your Business
Episode 31 — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) are joined by Ryne Sherman (Chief Science Officer at Hogan), and Martin Solway and Fidel Torreiro (Co-Founders of Audax Generation) to explore a counterintuitive truth: hiring superstars can actually drag team performance down.
We're told to recruit the best. A team of A+ players means high performance… right?
Wrong.
Research shows the superstar effect is real — and it can quietly sabotage your team dynamics, your culture, and your bottom line. In fact, a toxic superstar can cost productivity equivalent to four full-time employees.
So what do you do? Do you stop hiring great people? Should you be recruiting "average" instead? And how do you build teams that perform together rather than compete against each other?
In this episode, Al and Leanne dig into the psychology behind the superstar effect, the difference between a superstar and a toxic superstar, and how to shift your focus from individual brilliance to team performance.
🎯 The Superstar Effect, Explained
The superstar effect is a psychological phenomenon where the presence of a top performer actually makes everyone else around them perform worse.
It sounds backwards, but the research is clear. When we're in the presence of greatness, we tend to feel inadequate. We compare ourselves unfavourably. We stop trying because we assume we can't match up. And that drags the whole team down.
As Ryne Sherman explains, it's like watching a chess grandmaster play — you don't even bother trying because you know you can't win. The same thing happens in teams when one person dominates.
But here's the nuance: not all superstars are toxic. The problem isn't talent — it's how that talent shows up. A superstar who uplifts others, shares credit, and coaches their teammates can be a massive asset. A superstar who hogs the spotlight, dismisses others, and creates fear? That's a toxic superstar — and the research suggests they cost you the equivalent of four full-time employees in lost productivity.
🧠 What We Learned: 6 Key Takeaways
Don't fall into the trap of recruiting superstars. There's nuance here — talent matters, but it's not the only thing. Fit and team contribution matter just as much.
Use psychometrics wisely. It's not enough to use personality assessments — you need to use them properly, with trained interpretation and a clear understanding of what they can and can't tell you.
Use team-building experiences playfully. It doesn't always have to be serious. Playful, immersive experiences can unlock team potential in ways that slides decks never will.
Psychological safety is the foundation. If people don't feel safe to speak up, contribute, and challenge, you'll never get true team performance — no matter how talented your people are.
Don't protect your culture — evolve it. Culture isn't a museum piece. It's a living thing that needs to grow and adapt as your team does.
Recruitment practices can build diverse teams. There are specific, practical things you can do in your hiring process to attract and select for diversity — not just "culture fit."
💬 The Toxic Superstar Problem
One of the most striking segments of this episode is the discussion of toxic superstars. The research suggests that a single toxic superstar can cost your business productivity equivalent to four full-time employees — and that's the best-case scenario. Other estimates put it even higher.
The challenge? Toxic superstars are often brilliant at what they do. They deliver results. They hit targets. And that makes it easy to overlook the damage they're doing to everyone around them.
But the cost is real: talent leaves, psychological safety erodes, and the team's collective performance suffers. As Leanne puts it, "We all have the potential to be toxic if the conditions are right." The question is whether you're creating conditions where toxicity thrives.
🛠️ Practical Advice for Leaders
If you're a leader who's built your entire recruitment strategy on hiring A+ talent, this episode is a must-listen. You'll learn:
- How to spot a toxic superstar at the recruitment stage (hint: personality assessments can help)
- Why "culture add" is a better framing than "culture fit"
- How to help talented individuals become better team players
- Why psychological safety is the secret ingredient in high-performing teams
- How to evolve your culture as you grow, rather than trying to protect it
📚 Resources & Links
Ryne Sherman
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rynesherman
- Website: hoganassessments.com
- Podcast: The Science of Personality Podcast
Martin Solway
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/martin-solway
Fidel Torreiro
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/fidel-torreiro-ra
Audax Generation
- Website: theaudaxgeneration.com
More From Truth, Lies & Work
- Take part in our latest leadership research: forms.gle/H654QD4nEgAjd4La9
- Listen back: The Ultimate Recruitment Framework
- Listen back: Recruiting for Culture Fit
- Listen back: Myers Briggs: Brilliant or Bullshit?
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. See deeper than they do. So they look at it and they go, hmm, it looks like to me like a bad move. But if he played it, it must actually be a good move. Hello, and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Work podcast.
Leanne ElliottWelcome to the Truth, Lies and Work podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottAnd my name is Al, and I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people and build amazing workplace cultures where people and businesses thrive.
Al ElliottWe definitely are. And we've got lots of great feedback from, from some of our previous episodes where people have said they've got some implementable stuff from it.
Leanne ElliottThat's a nice word.
Al ElliottImplementable.
Leanne ElliottImplementable.
Al ElliottI like saying that. I like saying hedgehog too.
Leanne ElliottI like porcupine.
Al ElliottWe just like spiky things. Things with spines. We're not a big fan of invertebrates because they don't have spines, but we are very, very big fans of porcupines and hedgehogs.
Leanne ElliottWe like ladies with a backbone.
Al ElliottOh, nice. On brand. On brand. Thank you. Thank you. So we are talking about this, these Superstar Effect today.
Leanne ElliottWe are.
Al ElliottDo we have a title for this yet?
Leanne ElliottWe do.
Al ElliottHit me.
Leanne ElliottSuperstar Hires: The Silent Culture Killers.
Al ElliottOh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yes. So it's funny because as a non-people professional myself, I always thought, oh, well, you just need superstars. In fact, there was a thing about 10 years ago when I was recruiting for one of my businesses, That everyone said, oh, you need to have a rock star. You need to have— and, oh, because some people would spell it R-A-W-K, which made me throw up in my mouth.
Leanne ElliottWhy?
Al ElliottBecause, because I think they were doing the Americans thing, a rock star kind of thing.
Leanne ElliottOh, gosh.
Al ElliottI know. Really disappointing. So there was a big thing about, oh, you need these great people and how you— how do you find the ninjas and the superstars? And then as Leanne and I were speaking, what we've spoken more, quite a lot, actually. Since we lived together.
Leanne ElliottLast 15 years of our relationship, we have had some conversations. We have.
Al ElliottWe have. And so, so Leanne was explaining And that's not necessarily the right thing. It's not necessarily the right way to go. So give us some, give us some background. Why was I wrong all those years ago? And still wrong now, by the way.
Leanne ElliottWell, that's what we're gonna dive in today. But there is a psychological phenomenon called the superstar effect. And there is something else called a toxic superstar. We're gonna explain the two, how they're different, how they might be similar. And what are the truth and lies of hiring superstars? Do we want to recruit A+ talent, or actually, do we want to be recruiting average talent? These are some of the questions we will be answering today with the help of our wonderful expert guests. Our first guest is a friend of the show, and I'm thrilled to have him back on. Uh, you'll remember him from our Business of Family episode. It is, of course, Ryan Sherman. Ryan is Chief Science Officer at Hogan Assessment Systems. Uh, he's an expert in personality assessment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. He is co-host of the Science of Personality podcast, and he's won lots of fancy awards for all the incredible psychologizing that he does.
Al ElliottPsychologizing like it.
Leanne ElliottLet's remind ourselves and be reintroduced to Ryan Sherman.
Al ElliottSo, I am Hogan's Chief Science Officer, which means I run our data science division at Hogan. The data science division really consists of maybe 3 different parts. One part where we do custom research for clients, helping clients. find personality-based solutions that fit their specific needs, job roles, or whatever they may be. All of the data that we gather, all the research and studies that we do, keeping those organized so that we're just always accumulating more knowledge and keeping that at our fingertips is a really important part of what I do or what my teams do. And our next guests are Martin Solway and Fidel Torrero. I think I've said that right, Fidel. I'm sorry, I should have practiced it before we actually pressed record. Fidel and Martin have over 40 years combined experience in various roles in the energy and pharmaceutical sectors. They've both got an MBA. Fancy, fancy. One of them, I think Fidel's is from Henley Business School and Martin's from the Warwick Business School. They're qualified and practicing coaches, and together they founded the Audax Generation, which is a fantastic business which creates immersive experiences for teams. Let's go meet Martin and Fidel. My name is Martin Colway. So I'm co-founder with Fidel here of the Audax Generation, which we started about 2 years ago. My background, so I've been in corporate settings the corporate world in the energy sector for about 20 years, doing different roles and went on a coaching course and found Fidel. And we got talking about interests and curiosity around unlocking people's potential and saw an opportunity around TEAS, which I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about today. And hi, this is Fidel. And yes, everything that Martin said applies to me. But instead of energy, my background is in pharmaceuticals, long experience working in corporate with many teams of all different shapes and forms and locations.
Leanne ElliottSo Martin and Fidel co-founded the Ordax Generation in 2021, and they are on a mission to unlock teams' potential. So yeah, they work with individuals, teams, organizations to bolster purpose and remain future fit. hear more about Ordax Generation?
Al ElliottSo, we work with, with teams, with, um, you know, various organizations, from kind of startups through to big corporates. Uh, and essentially what we do is we work with them, uh, utilizing coaching. So, our, really, our philosophy is, is that, uh, we believe that, you know, every team is, is made up of individuals who are unique. Um, and then we do workshops as well, and our workshops Are slightly different in terms, in regards that they, we really wanted to disrupt as well the way we do things. So we use metaphors where we partnered with different teams in different countries as well. So we've partnered with teams such as what's called the Castellers in Catalonia, who do these amazing human challenges.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottA rowing club. Uh, here locally in Oxfordshire, uh, and, uh, uh, so an aerobatics, uh, display team as well. So to really, uh, to give some fun in terms of, uh, for teams to come along together, but to really challenge their thinking, uh, and, and push them to say, look, you know, you can achieve amazingly seemingly impossible things. Human towers. I tell you what, if you, if you want to see some crazy pictures, go to the Audax Generation website. There's, there's towers of people, hundreds of people high, I'm sure. I still don't know how they do it without— with health and safety and all that, because someone fell off the top. That's gonna hurt.
Leanne ElliottI, I, I don't know. I'm sure they'll tell us if we ask them.
Al ElliottI'm sure they will. So we'll hear more from Ryan, Martin, and Fidel shortly. But first, it's our favorite time of the week. It is the news roundup. Yay! If this is your first news roundup segment, then look Lucky you.
Leanne ElliottOoh, you're in for a treat.
Al ElliottYou've got about 6 and a half minutes of Leanne telling you what's happened in the world of people and culture this week in her own inimitable— that's a difficult word to say— in her own style. I'll leave it at that. Over to you, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottBest advice from a teacher just reminded me. I've never been very good at spelling, and my English teacher— this is back in the day, we had to write my English A-level, had to actually write, not type— and she said to me, if you don't know how to spell a word, pick a different one.
Al ElliottI wish I had a teacher like that.
Leanne ElliottIt's like, if you don't know how to say a word, Anyway, news roundup. Something has been brought to my attention.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottWe have a new word or phrase, really. Bare Minimum Monday. I think it— I think I have a feeling it is what it says on the tin. Um, but yeah, this was a TikTok creator called Marissa Jo who went viral, um, picked up by ABC News and everything by speaking about this phrase on a series of posts. And I think this is an example of where, you know, we might see a headline of, of Gen Zs want bare minimum Mondays and be like, how goddamn it, how dare you not want to work on a Monday? Not saying that. Marissa is saying is rather than overwhelm yourself on a Monday and create this sense of dread going into, into a Monday morning, which is actually a signal of burnout potentially. So Be mindful. But it's actually, let's make it, set ourselves some realistic expectations. Let's try and set ourselves tasks that either are gonna set up our week or provide us for energy for the rest of our week. It seems like a sensible way of managing work and time to me.
Al ElliottThere's a, there's a great book called The One Thing by Gary something. I will try and link to it in the, in the show notes. And it's basically saying, look, when you start off every single day, you go, what's the one thing I have to do today in order to achieve the one thing I'm gonna do this week and the one thing I'm gonna do this month and the one thing I'm gonna do this quarter, et cetera, et cetera. I am making a hash of the way that he's basically described this, but it is a brilliant book. And it is essentially that going, look, what's your, what's the priority? Because there's a couple of weird things. There's another book called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, I think. And it's basically saying, look, do the worst thing on your to-do list first. And then you go, if I just do nothing else, I've done that one thing, which is cool for 2 reasons. First of all, you've got rid of the horrible thing.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottHe talks about, he uses the analogy of eating, swallowing a frog. If you do that one thing, but then also you kind of go, oh, that wasn't so bad. So now I might as well do the other 2 or 3 things on my list. And it's just, yeah, it just works. What else you got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottWell, as you well know, it is Women's History Month at the moment. And I saw a couple of things pop up this week around the gender pay gap and pay transparency. There's some new research that's been done, an organisation called Vizier, They looked at over 50 million employee records, so a pretty big sample here. And we're still, we're still showing a pay equity gap. And sadly, that seems to be getting worse. So in 2017, women were paid roughly 85 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. And as of 2023, that has fallen from 85 cents to 84 cents. That might not feel significant, but obviously we do not want these things One potential solution that has been talked about as well is around pay disclosure laws that are currently coming into place across the USA in various states, basically saying that if you advertise a job, you have to say how much money you're going to pay that person. It sounds fairly straightforward, but organisations are very apprehensive to do this because, of course, if they can negotiate lower salaries for some people, whether they're women or not, then they are going to save money. But as the world of work is changing, Managing this strategy may no longer be sustainable because we are finding out in terms of how pay transparency influences applicant behaviour, 82% of US workers are more likely to consider applying for a job if the pay range is listed.
Al ElliottThat's a good point. That's a good point. So, pay transparency. What else we got, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottFinally, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal this week, which is talking about having, um, as a cure for quiet quitting, do we need collaborators or do we need rivals? And I thought this fit in quite nicely with our conversation today. So what they're basically saying is that if we have a colleague who is vying for the same promotion as ours, or a peer that's pushing us to outperform, is that going to improve our, our sense of motivation, therefore our sense of belonging, therefore organizational commitment, and reduce our tendencies to quiet quit. But how do we create healthy rivalry in teams, and how do we balance that? And the answer seemed to be, from the most recent research, is that we need to develop what is called a shared group identity with your competitors. So it's kind of what you've already said about sales teams, Al. You know, you've got, you've got your own agenda and you've got your own targets you want to hit, but ultimately you're all working towards the same goal. So researchers tried to look into this, and, and they did a really cool experiment with video games. So people played like 2 rounds where you could win cash prizes, and you either won for attacking enemies or defending your territory. And in round 1, other players were on your team, and in round 2, the other players were your competitors. So they were trying to figure out what came— what comes first, cooperation or competition? Does it matter? So what they found is that if in the first round people can competed with, with each other, then in the second round it was really, really difficult for them to work as a team. Um, they were pretending to get along, but they still kind of hoarded key information for themselves. But the opposite was true and the other way around. So if they, if they were a team first and then competed, um, then that shift was much more, much more comfortable. Um, and it did kind of turn into this kind of adoption of, of pattern friendly rivalry. So I think it's interesting from a business perspective that if you are looking to create this healthy rivalry, it's actually starting with, with like prioritising the team relationships first, and then kind of looking at a kind of competitive side of it rather than the competition first. I thought that was quite interesting.
Al ElliottYeah, very interesting. Thank you very much for the news roundup, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYou're welcome.
Al ElliottSo let's get back into the main show. We have a series of questions that we wanted to answer in this one. So first of all, I want to know, what is the superstar effect? And is it different to a toxic superstar? Then we want to look into what the truth and lies are of hiring superstars. Once we've hired them, how do we manage them? And then actually, should we even be recruiting superstars at all? Should we even be looking for superstar talent? Should we just be going for average talent? And finally, all around the teams, why is it important to shift our focus from individual to team performance? How do we build these diverse teams? And the last question, which is one from Tom, is how do we protect the culture as we grow?
Leanne ElliottYes, lots of interesting questions today, and some answers that may seem a little counterintuitive. So let's dive in with the superstar effect. It seems reasonable to think that recruiting superstars, or A+ talent is another kind of popular phrase that's used, It seems reasonable to think if we recruit these people, it's going to improve our performance of our teams, of our business, and generate some healthy rivalry, right?
Al ElliottSo that does make sense. So what exactly is this superstar effect? Here's Ryan to explain. So the superstar effect is this sort of strange phenomenon where when you bring in a superstar or hire a superstar, you would think that it would raise the level of your team, right, that your team would dramatically improve. And the superstar effect is a situation where you're bringing in that superstar actually degrades the performance of those who are around. So, it actually lowers the team performance. And there are some clear examples of this in the world of sports. And in some cases, they don't hurt your team, they actually help your team, but I'll sort of differentiate that here in a second. So, one example from the world of sports is Tiger Woods. When Tiger Woods sort of emerged on the golf scene, he was so dominant and he's winning so many tournaments that— and there are some researchers who've done a bunch of analyses of golfers who played with Tiger Woods. That it turns out that just playing with Tiger Woods or playing in the same tournament where Tiger Woods was playing, people actually scored worse on average when he was in the tournament. So, just his presence alone put enough pressure on people that they performed worse. But there are cases where you bring a superstar onto your team and it actually degrades the performance of those people who are around because they feel more nervous, they feel more pressure, they feel that they have to step up in a way To show that they're a superstar as well. There's a whole host of factors that go on psychologically when a superstar gets added to a team. And so, that's one of the ironies about a superstar effect. You might think that, oh, by adding Tiger Woods to the field, that's going to raise everyone's level. They're going to feel like, oh, we have to play even better and we're going to be more challenged and they're going to play even better. But in fact, it's the opposite.
Leanne ElliottRight.
Al Elliotttry too much or they pushed for too much and they get worse. And the same thing can happen on our own, our own teams as well, right? That's really interesting. Because if you think back to, for example, Mad Men, one of my favorite TV series, when Peggy comes in and just Peggy is just incredible as a copywriter, then yeah, you would expect, oh, well, everyone else is going to, is going to rise above. But then there's that kind of thing called the tall poppy syndrome, isn't it? Where apparently poppies were, if a poppy grows too tall, then the other poppies that are strangling bring it down. I don't know whether that's true. I heard it from Tony Robbins when I was walking on fire about 15 years ago. But, but the, this, this idea that it doesn't necessarily sort of translate, which is really counterintuitive.
Leanne ElliottYeah. I mean, it does, it seems intuitive, doesn't it? That in the presence of greatness, we're gonna feel inspired and we're gonna feel motivated. But as Ryan says, that, that is not, not the case. It's the opposite. So what's happening in our psychology that in some circumstances we're actually Reacting negatively to the superstar? What's going on? I asked Ryan his thoughts based on both his research and his experience.
Al ElliottThere's another interesting case with this chess player, Magnus Carlsen, where basically because of computers, you can analyze every move, and you can decide if this was the right move or the wrong move, or you can actually sort of quantify the quality of that move. Was that— how good was that move in a sort of quantitative way? But sometimes Magnus makes a bad move, And people fall into the trap of assuming it must be a good move because Magnus, who's the world champion, because he made that move, it must be good. And so, they don't take advantage of the mistakes that he makes because they think that he must see deeper than they do. So, they look at it and they go, hmm, it looks like to me like a bad move, but if he played it, it must actually be a good move and I've got to figure out why. And it ends up actually playing sort of into his advantage even when he makes those mistakes. mistakes. So, so that's part of it is that we sort of psych ourselves out, right? We fool ourselves into thinking about things in a different way when that superstar is nearby. This is really interesting. And I think I've seen this in action. I used to have a web design agency. And I used to go and look at some of the other creative design agencies' websites and go, oh my God, that's amazing. Look at how it scrolls horizontally and how the mouse pointer has got a little something that follows it and whatever. I used to think, oh my God, I'm never going to be as good as these guys. When in actual fact, just because they were a creative agency, their website was probably a bit shit. It was really difficult to use. And but I assumed it was just brilliant because they were a creative agency and they were above me. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think that's the funny thing, isn't it? We attach so much prestige and admiration to people who are experts or phenomenal or kind of leaders in their field. But, you know, we can forget sometimes that they're human. They too make mistakes. stakes as well. Um, so yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it? So what does that mean for, for our teams then? Because we do hear a lot about businesses, um, you know, taking that approach to A+ talent, teams of superstars. So what impact does the superstar effect have on our business? Ryan explains that there are several possible impacts.
Al ElliottMaybe some of the talent will leave, some of the talent will go, geez, I'm not as valued here, maybe I'll go somewhere else. Others, other examples that we see happening in the United States many years ago in the 1960s, there was sort of an event known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was kind of a disaster. Well, that event was kind of successful, but prior to that was the sort of the Bay of Pigs sort of attempted coup of Cuba that was really put together by what people thought of at the time as this group of geniuses, right? Yeah. The United States had created this between John Kennedy and several members of the cabinet that had created this sort of super think group, right? That this group knew more than anybody else. They were the smartest people and they were brilliant strategists. And basically, we can do no wrong because we have so much talent gathered together. That's another trap that we can fall into with the superstar effect. We can go, well, we've got so much talent that whatever decision we make must be a good decision. And you can actually fall into this trap called groupthink where you all go, oh, yeah, this must be a good decision because we came up with it. And that can happen if you have a superstar or even multiple superstars. Again, people might not question the superstar's idea. You bring in a new superstar, the new superstar says we should do this, even if fundamentally you go, boy, I don't know if that makes any sense in our business. We tend to go, well, but this person's a superstar, so let's go with what they have to say. So, we tend to not question or push back. Again, some of which can lead into the trap of sort of making pretty serious blunders as an organization. Bet you didn't think we'd be talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis in this podcast episode.
Leanne ElliottI couldn't know. I couldn't know. I could not have anticipated that. But yeah, I think it's an interesting example. And I think, you know, we see this in all sorts of groups. You know, it's almost as well as kind of diffusion of responsibility. That's kind of a socio-psychological term where a person is basically less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when there are other bystanders or witnesses present. So, if we have these other experts with us, this diffusion of responsibility, as Carl says, to kind of react or intervene, is significantly reduced. What's also interesting as well, this is one of the big criticisms of creating psychologically safe environments, actually. We always say there's no kind of absolute intervention, absolute thing to do. It all comes with a, well, maybe, it depends. Um, but yeah, some research in psychological safety, um, found— and this is from 2011— found that psychological safety can also incubate unethical behavior as there is a lower fear of being judged.
Al ElliottMakes sense, because if you— if everyone's got a voice and it's okay to say your opinion, then you might be more inclined just to be a little bit more unethical, um, because You know, everyone's got your back, so they're looking after you. So we were going back to Martin and Fidel. We asked them their thoughts on recruiting the superstars. Martin explained that in their research and their experience, that they— that approaching teams as a whole rather than individuals in a team is a great starting place. And we've developed a kind of audacious team DNA, if you like. So when we look at, you know, to be an audacious team partner, there's 4 key things that we look at. That then we work with teams on as well around a thinking framework that we've developed. And essentially the first thing is being all-purposeful. So we found that to be an effective team, the common trait there is that they have a very clear purpose. And not only do they have a very clear purpose, but the individuals within that team are aligned to that purpose. So their individual purpose is aligned to the to the team purpose. So that's number one. The second thing is that they're bold. So, you know, they're not afraid to try new things. They're not afraid to fail. You know, they will experiment and they create an environment as well where they can challenge each other and they can, you know, they can really try new things. The third is being curious. So being curious about each other within the team. I think this is Sometimes often missed in large organizations. We assemble a team and we immediately get on with the project in hand instead of learning about each other and how we can really leverage the strengths, the superpowers that each individual brings. And obviously, if we don't, if we're not curious about each other to start with, then we're not going to understand how each other works and what the superpowers are. And then lastly is diversity. So, you know, how, you know, being a diverse team, being inclusive where, you know, everybody is allowed to join, but more importantly, tapping into that diversity as well. So it's really creating an environment, you know, the terms that lots of people use around psychological safety, but, you know, really creating that environment that people can express their ideas and their diversity of thought.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, and bring to the tables.
Leanne ElliottI think that's a really useful kind of overarching way to look at it, is rather than necessarily think about recruiting individuals that are gonna contribute to performance, how do we, how do we structure our teams? How do we nurture our teams to perform, you know, as superstars collectively? I think that's a really, really great starting place to think about it.
Al ElliottYeah, and I think the idea of having a shared Martin just said there, there was boldness, shared purpose, diversity, and curiosity. Well, if you're a superstar already, you're probably not curious anymore because you think that you know it all. Shared purpose? No, you're probably just looking to be right. So you're already 50% of that. You're out. So you can see why you might have problems integrating a superstar into a team of— I don't wanna say non-superstars, but just average people like me. So Fidel went on to explain that thinking about teams in this way is helpful for leaders when they're looking to leverage the talent of every team member to achieve the performance objectives. And in this context, you need to ask yourself as a leader, what does A+ talent or superstars look like for me and my business? Here's Fidel to explain more. The thing is that what is an A+ talent? And one could say, well, A+ talent is someone that It's a high achiever. It's someone that in a previous organization, in a previous role, has done something that is remarkable. It could be something that— someone that is very knowledgeable, technically knows it all. So it's not about himself or herself. It's about how do I leverage these unique talents Yeah. That each one of my team members have. So if we are talking about this, about these people, this type of personality, we want many of those because in a way, this A+ talent, what he's going to do is to make the team better. He's going to push the team, he's going to make the team feel this connection to the purpose. feel the belonging, feel the psychological safety that Martin was talking about, to express themselves, to put their ideas forward. So, we want more of those.
Leanne ElliottMartin also has some thoughts on what it means to be a team of superstars in the world of work in 2023.
Al ElliottSo, high-performance teams and how to get high-performance teams comes up a lot. And interestingly, I think, so a lot of academics recently You know, especially in the kind of team coaching space, which obviously we're very active in. So there's people out there like Peter Hawkins, etc., who are actually trying to— who promoted high-performance teams, and they're actually changing track a little bit and talking about adding added value teams. And really what that means is that, you know, because high performance, if you're a team, And you want to be high performing, then that instantly creates competition. So I think there's a change in thinking as well to say, well, actually, is that the right approach? Or do we want teams that actually add value to other teams outside of their own teams? And I think that applies to both the team and then also individuals within the team. So, you know, we talk a lot about kind of superstars and then high performing teams and, you know, having super teams, but Actually, in our experience, the best teams are the ones that, you know, don't necessarily have the superstars that, you know, are really able to crack it. Sometimes the superstar teams, if you like, are the ones that have the biggest challenge to really be a high-performing team.
Leanne ElliottIt is an interesting shift, and we're seeing that in culture as well. Rather than talking about culture fit, we're talking about culture add. And I think it's, yeah, it's an important shift that's happening. Um, so interesting to hear that it is also happening, um, in the world of team coaching as well. But before we dive further into teams, let's take it back to the individual. So, we now know what the superstar effect is, but there is another term that's used in psychology, um, which you may have heard of, and that is toxic superstars. So, what are toxic superstars? How can we spot them? And what does it mean for an organisation and its performance? Here's Ryan.
Al ElliottWhen we're talking about superstars, we really are talking about top performers, people who are really generating lots of productivity and revenue for the organization. But of course, there is this scenario of toxic superstars. And you see that, again, it's very frequent. You see that in sports or in athletics where some superstar comes in with a pretty large ego, big expectations, and ruins the organization because—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThey forget that in many cases, these are team events and that you have to get along with your team to be successful. And so, yeah, that is a sort of a little separate category where you can be a superstar in terms of your talent, but sort of toxic in terms of those interpersonal behaviors. And that's— To sort of go back to one of the earlier topics, what personality is all about. So, in some respects, it's very easy to evaluate someone's productivity talents, right? You know, just like in athletics, they measure all kinds of things about people, you know, how far you can throw, how fast you can run, how hard you can kick. All of those kinds of things are very easy to measure. The more challenging thing to measure is how are you going to get along with the other people that you work with? And that's what personality is really all about. It's the same thing in the business world, right? So, we can see, where did you get your degree from? How many years of experience do you have? Which, you know, mega corporations or jobs have you had in the past, right? All of those kinds of things are really easy, right, to sort of measure up. What are your qualifications in that regard? But how you're going to get along with other people turns out to be really, really important. And it's just a lot trickier to measure than just looking at somebody's resume.
Leanne ElliottOh, I love this. We're getting to the juicy bit now, personality and behavior. I was— when I was re-listening back to Ryan, I was thinking about PJ Brady from last week, um, who was talking about the difference between Nelson Mandela and Donald Trump. You know, both very ambitious people manifested in very, very different ways. And it's the same with employees, especially people we're tagging as superstars. How do you know if you're recruiting a Mandela or a Trump? And if we don't dive deeper into the psychology of applicants, uh, we might not know at all. And this is where psychometrics can play a really useful part in helping us to understand how people get on with other people, how they'll interact within our business. Typically, psychometrics will help us find the risk factors, but there are also some moderating traits and behaviours, aspects of our personality that help us to enact or choose behaviours that are more positive and effective in working together and getting the job done. I'm not going to dive too much now at the moment in terms of kind of the risk factors of personality how they're moderated. We talk about this a lot on a couple of episodes, and I will link them in the show notes. So, I asked Ryan, what is perhaps an example of a moderating factor or moderating behavior that we can observe in superstars that are gonna suggest they are more likely to work effectively with our teams and within our organization?
Al ElliottWell, so, a few things that seem to show up are, one is, is really good coaching, right? So, um, If you have a coach who can sort of get that superstar to cooperate with the other folks, that seems to be really valuable. So, one of the things that we talk about from a personality standpoint is something known as coachability. That is, some people are just more coachable than others. Some people listen to feedback. Some people adopt feedback. They take that feedback right away and they try to incorporate that to improve their performance. Other people go, no, I don't need your feedback. No, thanks. I already know what I'm doing. I'm better than you. I know more than you do. And that turns out to be a huge individual difference in terms of how teams end up performing, particularly when you bring in a superstar. So, that's one of the things that I would be looking for in bringing in superstars is how coachable are they? If they're a superstar but they're uncoachable, they're just going to do their own thing, they're going to do whatever they want, maybe it'll be successful, maybe it'll be a failure. But if you've got a superstar and they're coachable, Then, right, if you have real talent, right, you know, just like sheer cognitive capacity, can solve all kinds of problems, can understand markets, and can sort of almost see the future in some respects, and they're coachable, then you have real potential from a business standpoint. So all I could think about when Ryan was talking there was Steve Jobs, like, incredible person, but just wouldn't— he's totally uncoachable. He's like, no, everyone wants the iPhone. It's like, well, what evidence have you got for that? Well, I know. And the fact is, he did know, and he was a genius. But also, he didn't really talk about Lisa. There's the, the computer that he released when he left Apple that was dogshit. It was awful. It looked horrible. It was horrible to use, etc., etc. So, yes, he's not coachable. And I love this idea that if you are amazing and you're coachable, then this is like a key factor in turning an individual superstar into into someone who's going to be part of an amazing team. Fidel agrees.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status seeking monkeys.
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. How do you help this person to become more aware that it's not about him or her? Or how do you help the team To become more aware that actually maybe with this high performer, we can win a game, but we are not going to win the league because to win the league, we need the team. And this is this type of experience. So one of the exercises that we are going to do always and with any team is going to be about purpose and about talent.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah.
Al ElliottThose unique hidden talents, those superpowers. And what we are trying to align here is, you know, what is the direction of traveling? Where are we going? And making sure that everyone understands that. So effectively, we don't know each other very well. And because we don't know each other very well, one is probably you don't have the level of understanding, the level of Even caring about the person, but two, you cannot leverage that. But but I think those those simple activities should happen all the time, and and I say all the time, or we say all the time because again we recognize that teams are dynamic, a fluid entity, and people comes and goes, projects. And, and so you really need to continuously readjust. So if I've understood Fidel correctly there, what we're talking about there is if someone is self-aware, then they are, A, easier to, to coach, but, B, also be aware of or have the awareness of what other people in their team have got the superpowers. And so therefore, the whole team can become amazing.
Leanne ElliottYeah. I agree. I think it is that exactly what you said. They're probably more likely to engage in more authentic relationships. Find out more about their, their peers and their colleagues, what their strengths are, um, and then leverage those for the, the overall good of, of the team. So, it is, you know, what I think what we're kind of surmising from everything— surmising, is that a word?
Al ElliottIt is, it's a fancy word.
Leanne ElliottI don't know, it might be the first time I've ever used that in a sentence. So, I guess what we're surmising from this is that yes, we can have superstars, but they're gonna have to be coachable, otherwise they might cause more trouble than they're worth. And actually, What is a superstar? Do we just want somebody who is coachable, self-aware, brings their own skills, and engages authentically with, with others that are team players?
Al ElliottSo if I'm hearing this correctly, then it sounds like superstars are really tough to manage unless they are coachable, which my gut instinct says that there's fewer who are coachable than, than, than the majority. So what's the message here? Do we stop recruiting these superstars and just recruit average talent instead? Is mediocrity this new superpower? We asked Ryan. Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, right? So there are certainly advantages that superstars bring, right? I mean, I think if you look at other sporting outlets like the NBA has a long tradition of if you hire a superstar, your wins and loss record can totally turn around, right? So LeBron James is a clear example of that with a variety of teams that he's gone to, has turned them from big losers to big winners just by adding him to the team. So, so there are So there are real advantages to having superstars as well. But what I would say, and there's some research on this done by some economists, actually, a beautiful paper all about personality where they look at, in this case, they're looking actually at the opposite, looking at toxic workers. And what they've done is they've actually gone to a bunch of organizations. They've quantified what sort of worker, whether this person's a superstar or Or worker toxicity, is this a person that's sort of a toxic worker? And then they've actually quantified what's the value to the organization of these different individuals. And what they found was that in the best-case scenario, getting rid of a toxic worker was worth hiring 4 superstars. So think about the value that a superstar brings to your organization, and you would need to hire 4 superstars to make up for one really toxic, bad worker, one worker who's creating disengagement among the organization, who's really downtalking the organization, who is sort of uninspiring, to use sort of— I don't know if that's a made-up term, but he's sort of actively destroying the organization from within, that you're better off getting rid of that person than hiring 4.
Leanne ElliottRight. Wow.
Al ElliottYou would need to hire 4 superstars to make up for that. And that's in the best-case scenario. Other estimates suggest 12, that it's a 12-to-1 ratio, that you would need to hire 12 superstars to make up for that 1 toxic worker. So it's not so much I would say, well, avoid hiring superstars, but I would actually say that you get more bang for your buck by looking out for those who have the potential to toxify your workplace.
Leanne ElliottThat's an unbelievable bit of research, that, isn't it? So, just to kind of really bring that point home, you would need to hire 4 superstars, minimum, 4 superstars to make up for 1 really toxic worker in terms of everything culture and performance. That's just it. When you hear it like that, like, it's, as a business leader, It makes toxicity completely unacceptable within your business. And that's not just even from a human perspective and, you know, the, you know, in, in making sure that we're protecting culture, but it's just bad for business.
Al ElliottSo can I just ask, so I just, we've talked a lot about sort of average talent, toxic superstar, superstar. And now when, when Ryan's talking about the toxicity there, is he talking about a toxic superstar? Is he talking about a toxic normal?
Leanne ElliottPotentially both.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo, superstars and norms like me, I'm a normal, I'm not a superstar. We all have the potential to be toxic if we find ourselves in an environment that for whatever reason isn't matching our values or expectations, or there's other things going on. You know, unless we have some kind of clinical psychopathology going on, then it's probably just, you know, a case of our environment. But yeah, we all have the potential to be toxic, and these, you know, these toxic Behaviours can manifest in all sorts of ways. I guess the most obvious one is bullying. Bullying is a very toxic behaviour that, that, you know, translates very quickly to a toxic culture. What we mean by toxic culture is when these, these tolerated negative behaviours are impacting how people think and feel about the organisation in the worst possible way.
Al ElliottThat makes sense. So, I think where we're at now, hopefully I'm with the listener now, learning as we go along, but the whole idea now is that we now know That we've got superstars, we've got normal, and we've got toxicity, which both of these people can fall into. So what do we need to do within our recruitment practice to recruit great talent that's gonna result in high performance but isn't going to result in either toxicity or this superstar effect?
Leanne ElliottYes, and I asked this exact question to Ryan.
Al ElliottYeah, so a couple of things. I mean, obviously, the first thing that everybody does is they take a look at your resume, they take a look at That sort of raw talent, I guess, kind of factors. But I think, to me, the more important thing to do, once you've evaluated that, once you said, okay, this person's clearly qualified, this person has a ton of strengths that they would bring to our organization in terms of their knowledge, their background, their experience, the next thing I think that you want to do is understand, okay, is this person going to be coachable? Is this person going to ruin our organization with with a sort of toxic personality or some set of personality characteristics that basically rub people the wrong way, that cause a lot of interpersonal friction. And so, the only way to do that is to use a really good scientifically-based personality assessment. And I would want one that goes to pretty extensive depth. I wouldn't want one that's just going to give me 4 terms or 4 scores. I want something that's going to go into a lot of depth because I really want to understand How is this person in total going to fit with this organization? Again, what are the things that they might do that might annoy or irritate somebody who's in my organization right now? And how can we remedy that? And again, that question I mentioned earlier, how coachable is this person? You can actually pick that up from the right combination of scales on a personality assessment and think, okay, are we going to be able to coach this person? And is this person going to be able to fit with where we're going in the future? And all of that shows up in the personality assessment. You're not going to see that on the resume.
Leanne ElliottPersonality assessments really do give you such a different view of somebody's experience and behavior. And I know the clients that I've worked with are usually quite— I think some of them think it's some kind of crystal ball. And you're like, how did you know that? It's like, because they told me, they filled in the psychometrics, and we, you know, we work together to understand it. There's— but it's these tools that can pull out these things from people that they might not be as willing to put on their resume, um, or, or say in an interview, or even given the opportunity to. So yeah, psychometrics are a really good way of kind of enhancing your, your recruitment practices and the effectiveness of those. So we know that we can use personality to assess how somebody will perform in a particular role and within the wider organisation or the team. But what's the risk factor here? I asked Ryan, is there a danger that we're going to recruit people into our businesses that are just like us, simply because they're going to be easier to get on with?
Al ElliottIt's a question we get all the time, right? So one of the questions is, well, wait a minute, isn't personality assessment, isn't that just creating clones, right? You're just saying you just want to clone your really productive workers, and that's it. You just want little clones inside your organization. And that's actually not true. In fact, personality assessments are the thing that really sort of celebrate how individually different we all are, that say we're all different in particular ways. Typically, what will happen with a typical client, like let's say that it's a role where safety is critical, where we know we don't want people who take risks, we don't want people who skirt around the edges, and personality predicts really well the kinds of people who are going to do those kinds of things. And it's okay to take risks. It's okay to skirt around edges. It's just not okay to do in certain jobs. And so the point is that for that particular characteristic, that it's critical for the job, we know that that's an important part of the job, it's really critical for the company to have people who behave in a way that's like that in that job, we might select on that one characteristic. But in our own assessments, there's more than 100 characteristics that we evaluate. So, we might be selecting on 1 or 2 or 3 characteristics for a particular role, but all of the other characteristics are allowed to vary. And it doesn't really matter. You can be very talkative and very sociable, or you can be very quiet and very shy. But if it's not relevant for that job role, then that's okay. We don't select for people on that. So, it doesn't create the situation where you have a lot of clones. In fact, it creates a situation where you have a lot of diversity. What you have is is cloned on the thing that's really, really critical for the job, which is really related to job performance, but everything else is allowed to vary.
Leanne ElliottA couple of things I think I want to, I want to kind of pick up on what Ryan said there. One, he's making it very clear that we are choosing or we're analyzing personality traits that are going to predict job performance. So when recruiting, think to yourself, do I need somebody who is extroverted and talkative and chatty and you know, are gonna bring lots of energy to the team if their job actually requires them to be very analytical and reflective. And, and I think this is sometimes a trap that businesses get into and why some of them struggle to, to find, in inverted commas, great talent, is because they're looking for, for candidates that either don't exist in the world, um, or there's no reason to ask for those traits and those qualities to do that job. And this disconnect just kind completely weakens the impact of our job advert and our employer brand in the market. And I think the second thing there as well, as you know, Ryan said that personality assessments help us celebrate how individually different we are. I would like to paraphrase that or change that slightly. Good personality assessments celebrate how individually different we are. And this is why I have beef with Myers-Briggs for any kind of recruitment strategy, because there are only 16 types. With a, you know, a trait-based personality inventory like, you know, the types that Hogan developed, there are an infinite number of possibilities and combinations of traits and how individual people are, as Ryan explained. Putting people in a box of 16 is not celebrating individual differences. It's not celebrating diversity. And at very best, you're probably cloning people that are just like you.
Al ElliottSo the opposite of clones is having diversity. So with so many stats out there saying my business will do better with more diverse team, how easy is it actually for business owners to recruit for diversity? We all talk about diversity, we all talk about inclusion, we all talk about equality, and I think we are still not being able in general to leverage the diversity that we have in our teams. Our interest is more on the diversity from a Thinking perspective. So your diversity of thought that is influenced by your experiences, your life, your family, your values, etc., etc. And it starts from there, from the recruitment stage. So what happens in the end is that through our recruitment process, probably unintentionally, what we are trying to promote are values and behaviors that are exactly the same As the ones that we have in the organization. So, that is opposite to diversity, to me.
Leanne ElliottI use the word intent a lot on this podcast, and I think this is another example of intention. What, you know, having a clear intention as a leader being really important. Yes, we can read a study and see that diversity translates to all sorts of benefits within an organization, creativity, innovation, performance. But again, it's digging into that. It's not to say if we recruit X number of Black people, X number of women, X number of neurodiverse people, therefore, we will have a diverse culture, and it'll all work, and we'll reap the benefits of this performance. It's not— that's not the kind of the point. The point is, is by embracing diversity, by structuring your organisation to recruit diverse people and diverse thinkers, then in that way, we're also going to be doing the things we need to do to create this psychological safety.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's that psychological safety that enables people to bring their whole self to work, their whole identity, and that's what then translates into this diversity of thought, um, and then these, these performance gains. I think as well, and if this sounds really overwhelming and really intangible, and I get it, I think it's, as Fidel kind of rightly pointed out there, start with recruitment. Recruitment practices are the easiest things to get right within your business because it's a science. And it's tried and tested processes. Yet, there are so many things that we are doing, probably unconsciously, and we don't realise it. They're excluding people from applying to our organisation, the types of diversity we want in our organisation. For example, I was talking to a colleague, and they said to me, did you know that if at the bottom of your job description that you're advertising, you simply put, Candidates who do not meet all criteria are still encouraged to apply. And what they found is doing that one thing saw a massive uptick in the number of women and people of colour that applied to that job. Something really simple, but, but that had a massive impact.
Al ElliottYeah, and I think this is really overwhelming for someone who just goes, I just want someone to come and do the thing so I can, I can carry on growing my business. So it is really overwhelming, and I think you made a good point there that you know if you've not done recruitment before, if you've done it a couple of times, you're like, "Well, do I need psychometrics? Can I not just stick an ad in the paper?" But then you also, when you start doing a bit more, you get more into the nitty-gritty. You go, "Hmm, yeah, maybe I'm not attracting as diverse a team as I want." But then you can go too far and go, "Right, well, I absolutely need someone who's from Indochina. I absolutely." need someone who's neurodiverse. So, you know, it's a bit of a minefield for the normals like us who just go, I just want someone, you know, a really good team. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think, you know, it is, which is why I think starting with recruitment and just the, the very transactional aspects of it can be really helpful. As simple as where do you advertise your jobs? Do you know, there are plenty of job boards out there that will, you know, that have communities of people of color or neurodiverse people that are more than likely going to use these job boards as a resource? Are you just advertising on LinkedIn? In which case, that's probably not going to help you find this diversity of thought and talent. And equally, you know, you said that it can be overwhelming. I just need someone to do this for me. Well, good news is we can. That's one of the core services that we offer at our consultancy, Oblong. And the really cool thing about it as well is you only really need to do it once, unless you then have a significant change in your business like a merger and acquisition. Everything's going to be fairly stable and just need tweaks. So, it's one kind of intensive yet short, sharp project that's going to get all of your recruitment standardized, get it really robust, get you recruiting the right people, diverse people, and maybe the odd superstar. But if they are a superstar, they will be coachable, right, Al?
Al ElliottYep, that's the rule. If you are interested in getting Leanne to come and do something like that for you, then there's loads of links in the show notes, a way, it's even a podcast, even an email, I think, that you'll be able to contact Leanne, and she'll tell you a bit more about that. So going back to this idea of recruitment, once we've got people there, how do we create a culture where everyone feels valued and heard, and able to contribute in their own unique way? Here's Martin from Audax. Oftentimes, you know, the best place is obviously to build a team from scratch, but that often isn't the case. So, you know, working with teams to really get the best out of themselves and to create that culture. You know, it's starting off coming back to curiosity really and being bold. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's often, it's a very simple thing, but we often kind of miss it, is just taking the time. And this is the problem that we find in, you know, in busy organizations is that we don't have the time. And so we're very busy doing lots of other things that we don't have the time to just spends getting to know each other, getting to know each other as individuals, and then really exploring and saying, okay, you know, what can we do as a team? And in a way, that's why we use, you know, so we've really thought long and hard about some of the metaphors that we've chosen to really challenge teams in this way. So before we get into the nitty-gritty and the projects, Is really, okay, let's take the time. How are we gonna operate as a team? So, so what's, you know, what did— first of all, let's be curious about each other. So what does everybody bring to the table? You know, and then, and then figure out in the knowledge that every team is unique and different. So, you know, one solution is, is not gonna fit. You know, you've gotta come up with your own solution and how you are going to work as a team. It is then, okay, What are the rules, if you like, that we, you know, we don't like rules too much, but, you know, what are the ground rules that we're gonna put in place for our own team? But what is it where we can really leverage each other's strengths, that we can have an environment where, you know, nobody feels uncomfortable to speak up, where everybody can speak up? But really taking the time, I think, to set those ground rules. And have that in place before, which we often see, you get, you know, a few months in and then issues start arising. So I think it's really, you know, and you can do this along the journey as well. So obviously there's many teams that are already formed, but, you know, taking that time to really, you know, learn about each other and figure out how, you know, now as a team we're going to operate going forward.
Leanne ElliottMartin shared there as well is actually a really good technique, um, in terms of setting these ground rules, um, in terms of your culture. So, if we have these values, what do these behaviours look like? What is acceptable? What is not acceptable? And in terms of leadership as well, you know, these leadership charters, what are the ground rules? What does it mean to be a manager in this organisation? What behaviours are we encouraging? What behaviours are we, are we absolutely not tolerating? And this all just helps people to to not only kind of nurture these, these relationships, but also, as Martin says, build this psychological safety.
Al ElliottFidel's a big fan of psychological safety. And so he talks about how you can sort out your policies and ways of working to nurture that from day one. And I think, you know, the concept of psychological safety that Martin was explaining, again, Yeah. This is something that should come from the very beginning, from the psychological contract that we establish with a person, even before you sign your contract. So, this is the way that we operate here. This is a framework where we are able to challenge each other. And we don't challenge the individual, we challenge the idea, we challenge the The argument, the premise under the argument. So in that way, we are really being individuals that can challenge and be challenged without feeling hurt. We, through that, we generate this creativity. We believe that the win is about winning as a team. The reward for the winning should be rewarded as a team as well. So, you need to make sure that when we work with teams and we say all these things, the policies that are in the company sustain what we are saying or the way that we want to work.
Leanne ElliottWhat I liked about Fidel's point here is he's kind of making the point that culture and policy require each other. And equally, if there's some kind of disparity or difference between how, how we're, you know, we say we're going to act and how we're actually acting, uh, not only is that going to impact psychological safety negatively, but also probably employee engagement. So, going back to the news roundup, for example, if you've got HR policy that says that, you know, equality and, and diversity, and we make sure that everyone is, is treated equally and with, you know, equitable pay and blah blah blah, yet you have a 15% gender pay gap in your organization, then those 2 things aren't connecting. So there's a lack of authenticity here. And I think it comes down to, you know, the same with, with recruitment practices. If you're saying we are a diverse organization, we celebrate diversity, yet you can't answer the question, is my current recruitment practice biased? Then there is work to be done. And so, I think if you're really looking for a starting point in terms of diversifying your teams, in terms of nurturing these diverse cultures and these engaging cultures, start with your processes. Do an audit of your processes. How are my current beliefs, my current policies reflected in my processes? Are my processes fair and free from bias as my values and policies tell me I should be? And of course, once we've established these things, And we have this culture, um, you know, culture can change. It is always at threat. There are some risks to our teams and our culture. I'm sure you're familiar with Bruce Tuckman's stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing. Uh, really classic model used in, in psychology. Um, but it's been extended now to kind of make the point that, you know, there will be a change, and then there'll be reforming, restorming, renorming. Um, because You know, in this, in this world, nothing is certain, everything changes. And even, you know, some of the most common and desirable changes that businesses face, like growth, um, you know, that can also serve as one of the biggest risks to our, our teams, their performance, and our culture. So, I asked Fidel, what can business leaders do to protect their culture?
Al ElliottMaybe it's not about protecting. Um, I think that there's, uh, there are Yeah. Values that, there are core values that you would like to retain and to nurture and to improve to some degree. As a culture, if you are doubling the team, I think if the expectation is to keep the culture that you have with the original team, I think we are starting to sacrifice the diversity that brings the other half of the equation. And I think, you know, just be bold and curious and see what these people bring and see how we together build what now represents us.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah.
Al ElliottWhen we are trying to protect effectively, we are trying to preserve our identity. And we are trying to say, well, we are right, and they are not so right. So maybe we need to show a little bit of vulnerability. It happens all the time that the original team, in a way, tries to preserve their traits and identity.
Leanne ElliottI'm not so sure that that fits with the concept of I think it can be really tempting, particularly as a business owner who's still leading that organization. You know, if you've built a great culture in your first few years, you know, and you want to grow from 20 to 30 to 100 people, there can be a sense of responsibility to protect the culture and team that you've built. But I think what Fidel's saying there is really, really two things. One, your team needs to evolve with your business because the team you have today might not be able to fulfill what your business needs when it's reached 100 people and has that much more complexity around it. And 2, I think it's the danger of being too protective over this identity is that these new people coming in, it has a real danger of fostering this us and them mentality. And I've seen that in businesses before that have grown quickly and haven't been, you know, hasn't been managed very well, or the people have been so, you know, holding on to this business identities, it does create this, we're the OGs, you're the new people, this is how we do it. Um, and this is again where all these microcultures start to breed from. Um, so yeah, I think it can feel again intuitive to want to protect your culture, um, but I think the actual counterintuitive solution is don't. That's also what I really like about, um, about Audax Generation, Fidel and Martin's business, is that it really is about creating these experiences that allow us to explore ourselves as individuals, what our strengths are, what we, we see our strengths are, what other people see our strengths are, how do we work together, how do we define these roles, how do we have this, this shared purpose, how do we use our diversity to come up with the best possible solutions. And they do it in the most fun way. So Audax Generation is all about these immersive experiences, like, like we said, building human towers and, and all these really cool things. Um, it really is a great business. So, we couldn't finish the podcast without learning a bit more about Audax Generation and the services that Martin and Fidel provide.
Al ElliottAnd we call them audacious teams. And why are they audacious teams? Because they are pushing themselves to achieve something unbelievable with the resources that they have. So they do maximize the resources. They do know how to unlock the talent that they have, the potential that they have in the team. So if we are working with the human towers, they are going to be making human towers. And the making of human towers, there are so many roles. So they might be part of the base, they might be climbing, they might be observing, they might be organizing.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThere is a place for everyone to be part of this immersive experience. So, Martin also explains how these experiences can build trust and in turn contribute to an inclusive and diverse culture. And I think just one other thing is the trust. So, you know, if you can do all those things, which we've alluded to, then you create trust. And, you know, that's why we use the Castillers, for example, you know, human towers. If you don't, you know, know each other's super strengths and and you don't trust each other, then, you know, you can't build 10 floors high without, uh, it ending in disasters, which, which I think is a, you know, often a good challenge to organizations, which, yes, you need, you know, policies and stuff in place, but sometimes, uh, we kind of get stuck behind those, those checklists and those policies and forget about the, you know, the human element.
Leanne ElliottIt's such an innovative way to, to do team building. Um, do have a look at at their website. And I think what's particularly important about Audax Generation, how Martin and Fidel work, it's not just about this one awesome day that people spend together and, you know, they bond and they have fun. They actually look at ways to take it forward, um, you know, to, to make sure that those, those changes are made when people go back to work on Monday. And of course, they do that through coaching, helping people to realize what, you know, reflect on their experience, what they've learned about themselves, what they've learned about other people in their team, and what they can actually do to trigger the changes that are needed within the organisation. It's a really, really, really cool company. We will leave all the links in the show notes. Do check it out, Audax Generation.
Al ElliottBrilliant. So, should we just quickly recap on the 6 things we've learned?
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottOkay, so number 1 is don't fall into the trap of recruiting superstars. There's a bit more nuance around that.
Leanne ElliottYes, and I think to use psychometrics wisely, it is not enough to use psychometrics. You need to be using the right psychometrics and in the right way.
Al ElliottNumber 3, use team building experiences playfully.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think it doesn't always have to be that serious, you know. Um, you know, you can think about— I think about, you know, like, like treasure hunts or orienteering, or, you know, I think, you know, I used to do a really funny team building thing, or like icebreaker team thing, um, with my coaching clients. So we used to, um, 2 teams Both have an egg, and you've got some tools like string and straw and paper and scissors, and you have to create some kind of safety vessel for the egg, and then you drop it from a great height and see which one— it doesn't always have to be that serious, you know, as long as you're then reflecting on those behaviours. What have we learned? How can we apply this into a more serious work situation? Which I think brings us on to, nicely, to point 4, which is use coaching Always.
Al ElliottNumber 5, don't protect your culture, evolve it.
Leanne ElliottAnd number 6, yes, there are recruitment practices that will help you build a diverse and inclusive team, but it's as much about culture, diversity of thought, and how that is encouraged. There's no point bringing somebody into your business if you don't have an environment that's going to nurture them to use all their superpowers.
Al ElliottBrilliant. So thank you so much to all our guests. Ryan Sherman from Hogan, his links will be in the show notes. Martin Soloway and Fidel Torrero— I'm sorry, Fidel, I had another go at it. I don't think I did. Don't think I've got it right— from The Audax Generation. Links to those in the show notes.
Leanne ElliottYes, and join us next week as we'll be wrapping up Women's History Month with a very special episode, and I'm not going to say anything more than that.
Al ElliottEven I don't know what it is.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye for now.
Leanne ElliottBye.