Creating a Collaborative Team Culture: Interview with Will Linssen

How do you create a collaborative culture in the workplace?

In this episode, Will shares how to create proactive and constructive conversations with each other and how to use key questions to have open and honest communication. The result of these conversations is collaboration and co-creation with your team where you get better, your team gets better and everyone wins.

Our special guest for this episode is Will Linssen. Will was my teacher in coaching. He is one of the global top ten leadership coaches by Global Gurus and Global Gurus recognizes people for their expertise around the world.?

Will is also the No. 1 trainer by Thinkers50. He is also the CEO of Global Coach Group where he helps take leaders to the next level by offering executive coaching services to leaders and organizations.

?? Watch the full interview:

What do you think is a great workplace??

WL: A great workplace is where people feel engaged and at home and they can relate to the people at work and also they can relate to the meaning that they find through their work. -- meaning for the clients that they’re serving internally or externally but also meaning for themselves in their own life and with their development.

AG: I like what you’re saying about meaning especially during this time of pandemic. I think people are looking for that meaning. Did you see that more often now with the organizations that you worked for compared to pre-pandemic that people are looking for more meaning or are finding ways to be more engaged at work?

WL: Well, of course with the whole work-from-home situation... people feel disconnected. People are looking for reconnecting and working with their colleagues. And I know people who have changed jobs over the last twelve months and they did not even have been to their new workplace or haven’t even seen their new colleagues.?

People are actually looking for meaning and relational experiences through their work. It’s nice for people to kind of be at home and have a private life and work from home but if you’re always at home, then you’re also kind of feel that it’s great to be not at home

AG: I like what you’re saying about it’s the relational part that people are looking for, the interaction with other people and you’re right, especially for people who have changed jobs. And there are a lot of people also who have been doing that since the pandemic and yeah, some of them even haven’t seen the actual workplace or seen the people that they work with so it is a challenge.?

What are some of the strategies that the leaders that you coach or the organizations that you helped are doing to create an engaged workplace?

WL: Our work revolves around resolving problems. If there is no problem, there is no job. Big problems are big jobs, so our work really resolves around solving problems at work which are related to people and process, and clients and service, and things like that.?

And that creates friction. And we just actually finished up, finishing up a piece of research that we did over the last twelve months in this whole COVID season where we have been seeing that leaders and teams -- they are good in trying to stay together and work together and they’re open and honest in their communication.?

So people do a lot of things and say a lot of nice things, but when it comes to solving problems, people really don’t like surprises and leaders are called out on getting upset and not being effective in managing their emotions around the communications, around the problems. That’s the challenge right??

So there is this kind of flip around “Hey we’re always nice but when it comes to problems and meetings and dealing with things, then I’m getting a lot of heat.”?

And because right now, working not in the same office environment together, that heat comes through the chat, the flags, or the project management software that we have or the e-meetings, so it comes off kind off out of left feeling people feel surprised and people feel kind of caught so there’s a lot of that stuff going on.?

So what does that mean? In order to be engaged and be connected, we need to go from the ‘being nice when the workers are calm and being relational when the workers are calm’ to ‘how do we do that in situations where the temperature around the problems are heated up?’ So how can we be proactive and be constructive in having constructive conversations and being encouraging to each other??

AG: Yeah, I like those words. Proactive and constructive because difficult conversations are harder to deliver right and it can be misinterpreted, right? I like what you’re saying now because that is one of the problems of today. Ever since before, but I think moreso now because of the emotions because it’s a little bit higher, there’s more situations where there can be misunderstanding.?

What are some of the strategies that your leaders or action steps that your leaders have used that have made them more effective communicators?

Part of what we have been focusing on over the last 18 months as we created also a coaching model that fits more with millennials because more than 50% of leaders nowadays are millennials and 90% of their coworkers and stakeholders are millennials.?

So we are really living in a millennial leadership world. We need to create actually the interaction between the leader and their coworkers which is much more focused on collaboration and co-creation.?

So you need to lower the hurdles on how we can do this together. As a leader, you need to be much more focused on ‘how can we change’. It’s not just about me changing; it's about we changing. And as a leader, I need to take the lead in that but I need to create that bridge on how to do that.?

I’ll give you a simple example. One of my clients, they have, every six weeks, conversations with all their direct reports on where they are in their career journey and how they are aligning themselves with the goals they are working towards in their business and how they can step up themselves and how they can gear up and what help they need.?

And one of the suggestions this leader got, and it was just amazing and I never thought about that... One of his direct reports says, “Hey, if we can have a discussion every month on, let’s look back over the last month:?

1. What are some of the things that you like in your work??
2. What are the things that you didn’t really like in your work??
3. What do you want to do more of that you did??
4. What do you want to do different that you have not done yet??

And he says that conversation opened up a very easy agile improvement process between me and the team member and it’s actually more about them that they like to talk about it and it gives so much information on how people look at work, what the grind is, how can we make the grind more easy.?

People don’t mind to do the grind work as long as they’re realizing it’s not going to be forever, we can think about how to resolve that -- so that opened up such a new way to look at how we are going to get better.?

So there are basically six questions that we have and they start basically around where are we going together as an organization and where are you going together based on that and then the next group of questions is about how are we achieving the results.?

How are you working towards those results? Do you have all the resources you need to get to those results? And then the last questions are around, what help do you need for us to support you better? And what can, how can I help you process, what advice do you have for me as your manager that I can either be better or help you better? And that paints a very automated process.

AG: Yeah and those are wonderful questions because it not just aligns with two of you where you’re going but it also helps you ask them what support do they need because I think people have different kinds of support that they need because people are different from one another and when you ask that questions and when you ask that direct question, it makes it really come out.

W: Out of that, in those questions, that direct reports say, “Hey, ask me every month, let's go back…”?

• What are the things that I did that I need to do but I wasn’t totally excited about it?
• What are the things that I really like to do that are really great?
• What do I want to do more and what I’m currently doing?
• What are the new things that I want to do and that I’m not currently doing?

And the beautiful thing in this process is that you automatically kind of have a hand and glove approach towards what the company needs and what the incumbent needs so it doesn’t, it really goes together automatically in a very agile process. It makes it very beautiful, it basically means you get better, the team gets better, the company gets better, everybody wins.

AG: Yeah, I like that. You get better, the team gets better, and everybody wins.?

WL: And that’s meaning.

AG: And what I like about what you’re saying is that is the “we” part. It’s not about that “I” anymore and I think that’s what I liked about the shift of last year to this year and the coming years hopefully that it’s not just about the leader -- me myself and I -- but it’s really about the organization I worked with, the people I worked with as well and how can I just really co-create like you said and collaborate with these people.?

Which quality of a leader stands out in order to lead an engaged and highly productive workplace??

WL: So nowadays there’s a lot of talk about psychological safety and of course this is a very big concept that people talk about and it makes whole sense. There’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever and one of the things that I have been working on with a lot of leaders is how can you make conversations easier and faster. It is all about the hurdle.?

Psychological safety is a big thing but you need to put a lot of small things in place to lower these hurdles and conversations. And these are small things like making sure your office door is open and making sure that the way your desk is placed that it is easy to approach, but it’s also things like walking around, making people cups of coffee, going around to do some small talk.

It’s being very deliberate about continuously lowering hurdles and conversations. Basically, you're continuously kind of wiping away the snow while it’s snowing. It’s a never-ending process.?

And that’s super important because these hurdles to start conversations seem to always grow. They never not grow so you have to continue to have to make sure that it dissipates.?

AG: Yeah, so I like what you’re saying about being intentional about it and being aware that there are hurdles like what you’re saying, “How do I eliminate those hurdles, how do I find little ways everyday to be just deliberate on eliminating those hurdles and I think that’s important. And those little ways actually build up and you get to see the results of that not just everyday but you pile it up, it’s just one bigger effect.?

WL: So we compile the whole array of activities that leaders can do to do that. One of the ways I’m coaching with their team, every day, they have a fifteen-minute tea break. If you’re not busy, join, if you’re busy, don’t join, that’s fine. But you know there is a tea break, there is everything you can drink and eat.

Plus they do some kind of social activity, quiz or jokes or what’s your favorite animal, whatever, there’s basically a social activity so people, just basically kind of having a really nice break of the rhythm and they just relate to people on a very different level that they normally don’t relate to. As a lot of fun, great personal connection, and so even during the COVID times they do that all online.?

AG: Yeah I think that’s important also having those little breaks and in what you’re saying about work you have a role an you are a different person, when you play that role, but there’s also that other side of you the more personal side the more friend in you also, the person you are outside of work so bring that in also helps. I think it’s helping create a kind of more like a humane workplace where it’s not just about work work work and goals, of course it is, but going to the human side of things and caring for each other.?

WL: It’s like your neighbor, you don’t need to be best friend with your neighbor but you want to be on speaking terms and easy to get to started.?

AG: That’s right, having a relationship.

W: So another executive team I work with, 9 o’clock on a Monday morning, the first hour, they just sit together and talk about what did you do on the weekend. So just kind of like huddle around in a comfortable corner in the office and they just talk with no agenda and they are a very fast moving company because they’re really barrelling to get their targets like the companies do and they say that hour on Monday morning is an easy way to ease it into the week... but now everybody is constantly in terms with everybody as an executive team -- pretty much for the rest of the week -- so it gives us just a great start.?

AG: Yeah, I’m hearing that and I think hearing you, the theme is rituals. Being able to create these rituals, whether it’s a tea break or the Monday morning meeting. I think rituals would really engage the workplace and even asking those six questions. That help us as well. Creating rituals and habits.?

WL: Part of rituals is exactly correct but people don’t realize that the culture they have is already a ritual that they built, both of it is implicit and non-intentional and that’s where it kind of goes off track.?

If you want to build a better culture, build a better team culture, or leadership culture, then you have to be intentional about building new behaviors and the more you put them into habits or into little process, the more they stick.

That’s why the tea break and the team lunches and the Monday morning coffees, so you anchor those things in a very easy way for everybody to adhere to. And now it builds culture. That’s it. You have to be intentional about it.

AG: So thinking about the culture that you want as a leader for the organization, for the group that you’re with, and how they create things that surround that to be able to create that.?

And also I think it’s taking a step back and asking yourself the things that I was doing before is that still effective for me. And maybe I should start doing new rituals or new things that can help the situation or the environment that we’re in right now.?

WL: Which we did over the last twelve months.

How do you think coaches can help leaders build a great workplace?

WL: I think it’s super important to do that assessment with the leader or with the team and just kind of find one or two things to change. Don’t change a lot of things, just change one or two things, make it bread and butter or meat and potatoes or whatever you fancy but make it very pragmatic and practice and help people to make it worthwhile for them.?

I was coaching this CEO of a big Asian manufacturing firm and for them it’s about communicating with one voice throughout the organization, that’s one of the things he’s focusing on.?

And so he built a business case around that, he had all those executive team members building a business case around that, and they’re all focusing on that. If you have the business case and you focus on one thing, then you realize if you change that one thing, everything starts changing that’s make it worthwhile so let’s just put all our efforts into that. That makes it easy and focused and doable and people see results on a relatively short notice.

And then you create an agile improvement process. So just incremental and as a coach as you facilitate that process then you see that everything starts moving in the right direction.

AG: Thank you so much, Will. You shared so much on rituals, on those questions, the important questions to ask, you gave some ideas also on what other leaders or other coaches are helping organizations and helping other leaders do as well. So thank you so much for being my guest today, Will. So good luck also on your business because Will also has a group of coaches where he certifies people so maybe you want to invite them to that.

WL: Anybody who is interested in the six questions I talked about -- it’s called Leadership Is As Easy As 1,2,3 --? that’s what the title of the document so anybody interested send us an email at [email protected] and also to everybody who’s interested in being certified in our 360 coaching process, send us an email at the same address, most happy to help you in the right direction.

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