James Scouller Appearance on “Manage Smarter” Podcast

C. Lee Smith and Audrey Strong invited me to join them on their US-based podcast, Manage Smarter. It went live as episode #255 on 17 June 2024 on YouTube, Spotify and Apple.

Lee and Audrey describe their podcast like this: “Each episode is a frank, fast-paced and sometimes humorous discussion of the challenges facing managers from the front lines to the C‑Suite. We address the strategic and psychological aspects of improving team performance, sales, marketing, customer experience, company culture and overall productivity. And we do it through entertaining interviews with innovative managers, startup leaders and executive coaches to help you become a better boss.”

Naturally, we discussed my new trilogy, How To Build Winning Teams Again And Again and addressed questions like:

• The Difficulty of Building Teams: Building a team isn’t a natural or easy process. You need to understand the subterranean psychological forces at play, both at the individual and collective levels, and find a way to direct them.
• The Role of Conflict in Teams: Conflict is a natural part of any high-performing team. Avoiding conflict and focusing solely on maintaining harmony can lead to stagnation and lack of decision-making … and disastrous results.
• The Importance of Clear Goals: Teams need a clear understanding of their purpose and number one goal. This clarity helps to align team members and drive their collective efforts towards achieving their main aim.
• The Concept of Pseudo Teams: Pseudo teams are work groups that decide to be a team without having a clear goal or clear need to act as a team They focus on unanimity and being civil with each other, which often leads to lack of decision making and commitment … and finger-pointing. They give genuine teams a bad name.
• The Unique Challenges of Senior Teams: Senior teams find it harder to form than other work groups due to members’ reluctance to accept peer challenges and fear of losing their autonomy. Understanding their unique goal and not conflating it with the organization’s goal can help in forming successful senior teams.

I hope you enjoy it.