James Scouller on the “All Things Leadership” Podcast

I appeared on the All Things Leadership podcast on Friday 13 September and it aired on 23 September 2024. You’ll find it here on Apple, Spotify and Podbean.

Fred Gatty, the host, is based in Richmond, Virginia, USA. He’s the founder of Gatts Consulting.

His podcast brings together experts to share their perspectives, stories, and lessons on leadership and personal growth. He describes it as “your go-to resource for valuable takeaways to fuel success in your leadership journey”.

Not surprisingly, we discussed the ideas in my trilogy, How To Build Winning Teams Again And Again. Fred asked questions like:

• James, in book one of your How To Build Winning Teams trilogy, you argue that much of a company’s success depends on its ability to build successful teams, yet so little attention is paid to learning the art of teambuilding. Why is that? I know you’ve been studying that for quite a while and it took you 17 years to come to this realisation, but why is it such a difficult thing for organisations?
• What got you interested in studying this and why is it such an important thing for us to pay attention to, especially now?
• What marks up winning teams from so-so teams?
• Given the complex problems facing teams — like absence of trust, fear of conflict and lack of commitment — what are some of the ways that teams can start unlearning those bad behaviours and incorporate some of the things we’ve talked about, for example better decision making and finding purpose?
• Can we talk about the three big psychological challenges that you say all teams face — Commit, Combust and Combine?
• What is the team leader’s responsibility and impact when it comes to the success of a team?
• You make the argument that, despite all this great stuff, we don’t always need a team, that there’s an alternative. What is that alternative?
• Why is it important for a team to address what you call the Combust issue, which Tuckman referred to as “storming”? Why is that a healthy part of team building?
• What do people NOT know about team building that they need to know?
• Tell us about your trilogy, what it’s about, and all the cool stuff that you have here for our listeners?

Enjoy the podcast.