Second Crack — The Leadership Podcast

Five Critical Skills to Boost Collaboration in Your Organisation - Inner Development Goals Part 5

Gerrit Pelzer, Martin Aldergard Episode 15

We talk about COLLABORATING the 4th category of the Inner Development Goals (IDG). In previous episodes we have covered Being, Thinking and Relating.

According to a study by Howspace, 76% of employees say they really enjoy collaborating, but 2/3 also say the way their company collaborates needs to change, but don’t believe it will change. There's clearly room to nurture better collaboration in organisations.

The IDG framework offers 5 skills or qualities to practice:

1) Communication the ability to really listen to others, to foster genuine dialogue, to advocate own views skilfully, to manage conflicts constructively and to adapt communication to diverse groups.

Communicating is not informing! Communication requires dialouge which in turn starts with suspending judgement and genuinely listen.

Reflection Questions:

  • How open am I to engage in genuine dialogue and practice suspending judgment?
  • How am I able to facilitate dialogue within my team, helping them communicate and collaborate more effectively?

2) Co-creation the skills and motivation to build, develop, and facilitate collaborative relationships with diverse stakeholders characterized by psychological safety and genuine co-creation.

Co-creation is a skill for all leaders, not only for professional facilitators. Also refer to episode on Collective intelligence.

Reflection Questions:

  • How good am I at co-creating? Where might I use too much ‘top-down’, not involving people enough?

3) Inclusive mindset and intercultural competence the willingness and competence to embrace diversity and include people and collectives with different views and backgrounds.

To really include diverse people in collaboration we must be able to see things through cultural norms or beliefs that are different from our own.

Reflection Questions:

  • How do I expose myself to people with different backgrounds? How do I challenge my own cultural understanding?

4) Trust the ability to show trust and to create and maintain trusting relationships.

We covered trust and relationships in Emotions at Work, and highlight that trust is nothing fuzzy or esoteric - it’s based on neurobiology.

Reflection Questions:

  • Can I be myself at work? Am I confident that I’m good enough being myself?
  • Which of my behaviors builds trust? Which might hinder trust?

5) Mobilization skills skills in inspiring and mobilizing others to engage in shared purposes.

If you have practiced the four previous skills well - communicated based on dialogue, engaged in co-creation, applied intercultural understanding, and built trustbased relationships - we would say you get  mobilization as a result.

Reflection Questions:

  • As a leader, if I feel that my team is not as motivated as I wish, what could I have done different? Did I create dialogue? Was there sufficient co-creation? Was trust built?

More info about us and our work:  SecondCrackLeadership.com


P.S. We are happy to announce that we have made it into Feedspot's Top 100 Leadership Podcasts

5 Critical Skills to Boost Collaboration - IDG part 5

Second Crack – The Leadership Podcast

Episode 15

This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors and typos.

[00:00:00] Gerrit Pelzer: A warm welcome to Second Crack - The Leadership Podcast. If you're new to the show, this is where we explore everyday leadership dilemmas and paradoxes, and where we invite you as our listener to self-reflect. I am Gerrit Pelzer and I'm joined as usual by my long-term friend and business partner, Martin Aldergard. So, hi Martin, how are you today?

[00:00:31] Martin Aldergard: I'm good today, Gerrit. And really looking forward to continuing our conversations on the IDG framework. 

[00:00:38] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah, we are we are moving on. IDG stands for the Inner Development Goals. We are moving on to explore today, collaborating and social skills. This is the fourth category of the Inner Development Goals, and you might recall that we started with Being and then Thinking. And both of these categories they are mostly about you as an individual leader. Then in our last episode, we moved on to Relating, this is about then how you connect as a leader with the other people you work with or connect with, also outside the organization. And now after connecting, we want to collaborate, of course. And ultimately next time we'll then talk about taking action together towards a common goal or vision.

[00:01:28] Martin, your work is more with teams. I focus more on the individual executive coaching. When you work with teams, what would you say, why is collaboration so important?

[00:01:40] Martin Aldergard: Yeah, I think it's, the way we, create things together. It's very little in life that we actually achieve as individuals only. I found a recent study from Howspace. They have done a survey among 3000 employees from Europe, North America, across all different industries, also including public sector. It's called "The State of Collaboration", and they have found that 76% of employees say they actually really enjoy collaborating. But on the other side, two thirds of them also saying that the way their company works and collaborates will not change, but they believe it needs to change.

[00:02:31] Gerrit Pelzer: So clearly a, a majority of the people interviewed say the way we collaborate in our organization needs to change, but they're not very optimistic that it will change.

[00:02:43] Martin Aldergard: Yes. So I think this is a great leadership challenge to discuss today and, and I think we're really lucky because we can come back to the IDG framework for some answers.

[00:02:54] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah, so the the big question is of course, how can we then change the way we collaborate for the better? And The Inner Development Goals offer, again, five skills and qualities so that you have something specific that you can work on. Before we go into the details, we wanted to share with you that, uh, we, we are very happy that we've made it into Feedspot's global top 100, 100 leadership podcasts and ,yeah, we, we have the champagne nearby. Um, so we are very happy about that and we thank all of you who made that possible. And of course, we would like to ask for your help to continue to grow the show. The best way you can do this is to tell a friend about it, or maybe you wanna share the podcast with your whole leadership team. And if you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that on your favorite podcast platform. Subscription is completely free, helps you not to miss any new episodes, and is a great sign of recognition for for our work. 

[00:04:02] Martin Aldergard: Yeah, let's get into the first skill.

[00:04:06] Gerrit Pelzer: That's communication skills and the the definition from the inner development goals is: the ability to really listen to others, to foster genuine dialogue, to advocate own views skillfully, to manage conflicts constructively and to adapt communication to diverse groups. And what stands out for me here immediately are two keywords. Ability to really listen to others and to manage conflicts constructively.

[00:04:39] Because just last time we had a bonus episode with Raquel Ark on listening as a leadership superpower. So if you haven't listened to that yet, go back to that one of course. 

[00:04:51] When I think about communication, one thing that always comes to my mind is the very first leadership training I attended as a participant and that's now far over 20 years ago. And

[00:05:04] Martin Aldergard: I can imagine,

[00:05:06] Gerrit Pelzer: and what, what can you imagine,

[00:05:09] Martin Aldergard: that was a long time ago.

[00:05:11] Gerrit Pelzer: It was, but I, I still remember that. And what I remember is, the trainer there was Klaus-Peter Arentz in Düsseldorf. So this is a shout out to you, I still remember your training. It really had a lasting impact that I still remember it. I really appreciate it. So what we learned there is that communication is a critical leadership skill and that many, if not most problems in organizations, are caused by miscommunication or unclear expectations. So if you have the ability to communicate effectively, then you can solve already a lot of your problems in your organization. But when people, when leaders talk about communication, what many people think about is, how do I get my message across? How can I influence others? And in fact, that happens a lot in my individual executive coaching. I have many clients they wish to work exactly on this. How can I communicate with more impact? How can I influence others, but getting my message across? I mean, that is of course very important. But it's, it's only one part of the, uh, equation, right?

[00:06:28] Hmm.I, I have an idea why leaders struggle with this.There's too many leaders I think that mix up giving information and communicating, thinking that it's the same. I hear a lot of things like, Okay, we have communicated the new strategy. But if you actually look into what has been happening is they have informed about the new strategy. There's a huge difference between informing and communicating. I think informing is when you give the actual data, you sending the data from your mouth or from your PowerPoints into the eyes and the ears of the listener. But communicating happens in the head of the listener.So, and, and the second thing that is tough with communication we are bombarded with information the whole time. We are drowning in information. How can you as an individual leader, reach through with impact? And I think, I think as an employee, we are really, we are starving for meaning. We have too much information that we don't know what to do with but we cannot make sense of it, we cannot create meaning of it. So how can we then communicate with more impact and how can we have better opportunities for good communication to happen? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. How can I get my message across? There is this idea what is happening in the brain of the receiver, but is also when I go back to the IDG definition to foster genuine dialogue. And what I feel reminded of is a concept that Paul Lawrence and Allen Moore developed nicely. They wrote a book that is called Coaching in Three Dimensions. And actually in preparation for our podcast today, I looked up in the book what they said, and they say: Our version of reality is constructed through our perceptions and the way we each make meaning of our experiences. Yeah. So I, if I add now my own words to it, that means we never really see reality, we have only perceptions. And Martin you also often use this word of, of a mental model and, and creating meaning. And when we now go back to, to the book by, Paul and Ellen, so to engage in dialogue is to let go of certainty. Dialogue is about exploring, making room for multiple perspectives and multiple truths. 

[00:09:27] Martin Aldergard: Yes.

[00:09:27] Gerrit Pelzer: In dialogue each participant offers a perspective and remains open to others perspectives. And then through this co-creative process, new possibilities emerge that were not there before. And then they continue, they refer to, uh, William Isaacs, who has written a book called Dialogue, The Art of Thinking Together, and isn't just the title Amazing. Instead of looking at dialogue at talking, it's about thinking together. And it is an art form. And William Isaac says, Dialogue is fundamentally different to skilled conversation and debate. Dialogue is fundamentally different to skilled conversation and debate. To engage in dialogue is to listen without parameters, without a predetermined sense of what's reasonable and what's not.

[00:10:29] Martin Aldergard: Hm.

[00:10:30] Gerrit Pelzer: And, uh, then they continue, They have some graphic there. So let's say when we enter into, let's say, a conversation, there's a moment of choice where we can either defend our view of the world, listen within parameters, working only from our mental model, and then either enter into a skillful conversation or even a debate where we come back to getting my point across right, making, hoping that I can influence the other person through just being tough, defending my, my position.

[00:11:06] Or instead of defending, I can make an active choice to suspend, to suspend judgment, to listen without parameters, and then I enter into this genuine dialogue, we can explore a story including the underlying assumptions and belief. And this is, is, this is then how new insights and possibilities emerge. So it really emphasizes for me, um, that communication is always a two-way street.

[00:11:36] Martin Aldergard: Yes, and this is how you can influence and how you can create impact. As leaders, we create impact by somehow changing the thinking patterns of people around us.

[00:11:52] Gerrit Pelzer: in, Sorry. Including in our own 

[00:11:54] right 

[00:11:55] Martin Aldergard: yes, it is. It is a co-creation and, and I. There is so important is you need to provide this space for real listening. Dialogue is two way and you need to ask open ended questions. And what I also think so interesting in what you, what you refer to is in some sense as a leader, communication happens only if you let go of control. Even you have something that you want to get across as a leader, but when you start a dialogue you need to let it go. Hopefully the message stays intact. In best case, the whole conclusion becomes even better after a dialogue. You can't have control when you have a dialogue, you've got to let go.

[00:12:46] And I also want to, to add this perspective. It's not only, dialogue, it's, it's not only one on one. It's a lot about facilitating the dialogue within your own team. I, I think many time we have been in team meetings when there's a really unproductive discussion between team members. You know, there could be two team members with different opinions and they just go on debating back and forth and back and forth. And the rest of the team members, they're just sitting there looking at their phones and waiting for it to be over.Communication skills is then also how can you facilitate your team to have a better dialogue.

[00:13:28] Gerrit Pelzer: Which links so nicely to what Raquel Ark said in our last episode. Right. I was also always thinking she was emphasizing listening skills and I was always thinking about listening as an individual, but she highlighted also exactly like you said. She also highlighted this idea that, listening is not only about the individual, it's also about: as a leader, how can I facilitate listening throughout the whole organization. That's really wonderful.

[00:14:00] This could lead us to, to some reflection question here on communication skills, right?

[00:14:06] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah. Do we have one that you wanna start with?

[00:14:09]  I'm thinking a lot about this: How aware and how skilled am I in facilitating dialogue within my own team? Because I work with teams the most. I, I think that could be really interesting as a leader. How do you step into conversations that your team are having in meetings that are not productive, and how can you facilitate the environment to make everybody heard, et cetera, to move a conversation along?

[00:14:36] Gerrit Pelzer: Mm-hmm. . Okay. For me, I would start again also with the mindset.

[00:14:42] Martin Aldergard: Mm.

[00:14:43] Gerrit Pelzer: How open am I to this genuine dialogue that we described before? And how often do I actually practice suspending judgment and not focusing on getting my point across? And then another aspect I would like to bring in, coming back to this point where it's that there is this moment of choice where I can either, uh, be defensive or suspend judgment. Um, Am I actually aware when I am becoming defensive during a conversation? Because it's not only about I go into the conversation, I know I wanna defend my point of view. Sometimes this happens non-consciously. We said before, we all make our own model of the world. We have our own truths, and sometimes we become defensive without being aware that we are defensive because our beliefs are at stake. Right. So eventually the moment somebody else comes with a totally different perspective how the world operates, that could put me in a position where I realized, my God, you know, how I've been living the last 20, 30, 40 years? Hmm. Maybe that was not the, the ideal way. So again, how am, am I aware when I am becoming defensive during a conversation?

[00:16:06] This two way communication is leading us then to the next step in, in the IDG framework, which is co-creation. When we have a good dialogue, we are creating a new understanding, for instance, around a source of a problem, possible ways to move forward to find solutions. And we have talked about this in previous episodes, for instance, about the collective intelligence. We're actually co-creating, and co-creation skills are so important. Facilitation skills and then co-creation skills are very closely related to each other. And I think this is sometime an underrated leadership skills, that that we have talked very little about in leadership training so far. So I think it's really interesting that that IDG starts to highlight co-creation skills as something that not only workshop facilitators like you and me need to practice, but actually that all leaders should be 

[00:17:07] Gerrit Pelzer: And You're making very important point here because many people, when they think about facilitation, they think about this external expert, who then comes in and helps facilitate whatever, a team session, right? Yeah.

[00:17:24] Martin Aldergard: So in, in the IDG, they define co-creation skills as the skills and motivation to build, develop, and facilitate collaborative relationships with diverse stakeholders characterized by psychological safety and genuine co-creation. I think real co-creation, it also means that as a leader, I need to remove myself from the center of problem solving and decision making.I think a lot of the, of the co-creation has to do with what we call sense making. the process of trying to understand what's going on. The bad thing is here is that as leaders, this sense making is hidden. It's something that happens inside our brains, and typically we will just communicate the conclusions and the decisions of our thinking, of our sense making. And and how can we be inclusive, how can we co-create solutions, if we hide our thinking, if we hide our sensemaking? So I believe that being very open and transparent about how I think as a leader, how I interpret what's going on, what information I'm taking in, how I see what options we are having, what I see as potential solutions, that must be a transparent process.

[00:18:52] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah. Now I would add here, not only again then for the individual leader, because when we are talking about this quality of co-creation. Right. Then eventually also when we are communicating together, about let's say a possible solution to a problem, the way forward, etcetera, that we then also make the thinking of the other people transparent so that we not only hear their statements, but also understand where they're coming from, that we see the whole picture and that we all know that yeah, we are on the same page, we're talking about the same thing.

[00:19:27] Martin Aldergard: Mm-hmm. First of all, we need to take much more time to invite the team to the discussion table. Help them to then one by one share their thinking. So it's so important that as a leader, I create this safe environment where we're actually saying, guys, what we're talking now is not right or wrong.

[00:19:50] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah.

[00:19:51] Martin Aldergard: You have the safe space to think out loud. And one of the techniques I use when I facilitate is called equal time. We just go around the table among all participants and everybody get a fixed time to think out loud, let's say for two minutes,

[00:20:10] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah.

[00:20:11] Martin Aldergard: and everybody else needs to be quiet and just listen. It takes a lot of patience. As a leader, it takes a lot of time. But imagine when you have co-created a solution to a problem with the whole team and they have all an understanding how we each one think about it, we have a buy in to the solution, we trust each other much more because we understand the thinking of each other, and they can move so much faster, even if it takes time, initially..

[00:20:44] Gerrit Pelzer: So when I listen to you, a reflection question that comes spontaneously to my mind is when I was thinking about the organizations I worked with, uh, as an employee and also as as a coach, I would challenge them. How good are we actually at co-creating.? Yeah. What is too much, let's say top down or where at least not enough people get involved and where can we get better? Doesn't have to be everywhere, but where do we need to focus on, um, to have more of this co-creation?

[00:21:21] Martin Aldergard: Yes, my reflection question is: Let's say when there is a challenging situation and I feel stressed as a leader, time is ticking. Would I fall into this older pattern of trying to make quick decisions, or short-cutting the co-creation process because I'm under a lot of time pressure. Versus trust the process. Involve the team. Give it the patience to rely on the team and give the team the proper environment and the proper time to come up with a good solution together.

[00:21:59] Gerrit Pelzer: Hmm. All right, so that was communication skills and co-creation. Perhaps it's time to move on to the category number three, inclusive mindset and intercultural competence. The definition from the inner development goals is the willingness and competence to embrace diversity and include people and collectives with different views and backgrounds.

[00:22:25] And when I think about intercultural competence, the obvious question is what does culture actually mean? And I've seen many different, very academic definitions of culture. For me on the most basic level culture is the way we do things around here. And of course, what is underlying the doing are the values and beliefs. This, let's say, group commonly holds. And we should perhaps also add that when we talk about culture, we can refer to national culture, a company culture, or professional culture. But for the sake of simplicity, I would say today we focus only on uh, national culture. When we talk about inclusive mindset and intercultural competence, that starts to me with the awareness that different cultures have different ways of doing things, different ways of looking at the world, and that my way or our way is not the only way.

[00:23:33] And Martin, you and I, we both experienced this firsthand when we moved from two European countries, Sweden and respectively, Germany, to Thailand, right? And the Thai culture is very different from most European cultures. And at least for me, I was thrown in an environment where people do things very differently from what I thought was perfectly normal, and suddenly after 30 years or so, my core beliefs, my, my way of looking at the world was severely challenged. Yeah. But, but anyway, following then, the awareness of cultural differences is we're coming back to openness and interest in understanding these other ways of thinking and acting. eventually respecting them. And so since we are in a world that is globally connected, it's becoming more and more normal for leaders to deal with different cultures. And I think the minimum that a leader nowadays must know is the basic dos and don'ts from let's say, how things are done in a different country.

[00:24:53] It starts with how do you greet a person? What is considered polite, What is rude, what dress code is appropriate for, for a meeting. So for instance, in Thailand, people tend to be much more formal in business meetings. Right? Um, when you think about, we talked about communication before . The German culture is when it comes to communication is among the most direct in the world. Thailand and many other Asian countries, they are very indirect. So, you know, I had to learn the hard way when I started working here in Thailand, that my direct way of communicating, saying how things are saying or what I want, was sometimes perceived as as rude, right? And it, and it certainly didn't help me.

[00:25:43] 

[00:25:44] Martin Aldergard: I need to try to understand what is the beliefs, the norms of my listener as well. How can I interpret what they are saying? In Germany, for instance, a yes means a yes, right? In Asia, sometimes a yes doesn't mean a yes. It, it just means, Yeah, I heard what you're saying. 

[00:26:06] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah. 

[00:26:07] Martin Aldergard: Again, we need to be patient as leaders. If we understand the cultural differences, I can understand that when you're saying yes as an Asian person, that means I still need to give you chance to talk more. I, as a leader, I need to explore more. If I cut it and interpret you as a German, I would say, Ah, fine good we can finish the meeting earlier. And then I get a nasty surprise later.

[00:26:34] Gerrit Pelzer: I, I indeed. This example of, um, there can be different interpretations, different mental models of, uh, "yes". Uh, that can also lead to a very hard awakening. That's, that's wonderful. And I think the more you need to collaborate across cultures, the deeper your understanding needs to go. I mean, you're absolutely.Not everybody is the same. Not every Swedish, German, Thai or whatever person is like all others from this country. We must avoid stereotyping, but it can then be helpful to go a little bit deeper, and there are various models that look at cultural dimensions. I mean, we know that people are different, but it can then help to explore how they are different, right? So on a reflection question, Gerrit. I'm thinking how do I build this intercultural understanding. I think for me it's a lot about how do I expose myself to people with totally different backgrounds? How do I expose myself to people in situations outside my own bubble of cultural understanding? How do I challenge my own cultural understanding? Because I think culture, we learn by doing. We learn by interacting with people that think differently and have different norms and values than what we are having.

[00:27:56] Um, I would think on the, on the most basic level, when I'm interacting with people from different cultures. What do I know about their customs, the dos and don'ts. And then of course, customs and, and dos and don'ts, that is the behavior on the surface. What is actually even more important? What do I know about these underlying, um, values and, and beliefs? And then also in terms of, let's say for instance, business meetings. Do I know what of my behavior that in my culture is perfectly normal how could that be eventually, or how do I make sure that this normal behavior is not misleading to other people, misinterpreted, or eventually considered rude?

[00:28:47] I think in a way, this also then leads to, to the fourth skill or outcome or quality, which is trust. Right?

[00:28:57] Gerrit Pelzer: We, we spoke about trust already many, many times, uh, in, in previous episodes. I would recommend to our listeners to eventually go back to the episode on Emotions at Work. Um, and yet we cannot highlight the importance of trust enough. I, I just wanna highlight one or two items. First of all, very important. Trust is nothing fuzzy or esoteric. It's the result of our neurobiology. And we spoke earlier about Paul Brown's model of eight basic emotions and trust is one of these emotions. It's the result of our biology.

[00:29:43] Martin Aldergard: Hmm.

[00:29:45] Gerrit Pelzer: That makes then trust as the foundation of productive relationships. And then again, these productive relationships in turn enable collaboration. And perhaps in terms of we, we spoke earlier about, um, , making sure everybody is on the same page. What do we actually mean with trust? And I think often trust is confused with reliability. Yeah. The, the boss telling whatever somebody in, in finance and accounting, I trust you will have this analysis ready by Friday. But this is not the trust we mean here. This is about, Yeah. I, I think you're a reliable person. You do, as you say, but trust is more. Martin, I trust that I can be myself with you. I can show you my weaknesses, and I will trust that you will not use this against me. 

[00:30:44] And this then leads already maybe to one of, one of the questions our listeners might have is, Yeah, how do I, how can I build trust? Well, by being human, by showing vulnerability and becoming back to humility, which is also one of the skills and qualities in the IDG. And when I as a leader, when I am humble, when I show I'm human, I'm not perfect, that then also allows the other people I'm interacting with to be vulnerable themselves, right? So they don't need to put on a mask. They can be authentic and be themselves. And usually when people feel I can be myself, then they will be more creative, more innovative and productive.

[00:31:29] Martin Aldergard: Hmm And this is all what we need when we want to create good co-creation and when we want people to communicate with each other and being on the same page. We need people to be themselves, we need them to think out loud, without fear of anybody using that, uh, we need to trust each other that we have the best intentions.

[00:31:52]  

[00:31:53] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah. And if I can pick up on what you said before, so this allows then also people to make mistakes, learn from them. And we see then in a, in a organizational culture where we don't have trust, people hide mistakes, we have a blame culture. It, you know, it wasn't me, it was Martin's fault. And, uh, we also see as another indicator of lack of trust in organizations when there are lots of rules and regulations. There is this need for control because we don't trust people. We write down lots of instructions, rules, regulations, and then believe that people will follow this, but that is not true. Right. Uh, the rules and regulations, it's themselves, they do not ensure that people will act accordingly.

[00:32:43] Martin Aldergard: And it doesn't work anymore. I mean, the world is changing so fast, it doesn't work. We, we need to act like human beings that can trust each other to do the right things, to do the best for the team, with the best of intentions. And I think that is how we collaborate well, and the, and the reflection question here.

[00:33:08] Gerrit Pelzer: I was about to jump to the reflection questions indeed. let's say from the individual leader, Can I be myself at work or do I feel I need to wear a mask? And that refers now to the individual leader do I have the confidence that I'm good enough being myself, but also does the culture allow that?

[00:33:34] Martin Aldergard: Hmm.

[00:33:35] Gerrit Pelzer: And then in terms of building trust with other people. Which of my behaviors as a leader will either build trust and which behaviors will hinder or even damage trust. Am am I trustworthy?

[00:33:57] Martin Aldergard: I have nothing to add to that Gerrit.

[00:34:00] Gerrit Pelzer: Good. Then we can move onto the last skill and quality, um, which is mobilization skills. They say skills in inspiring and mobilizing others to engage in shared purposes.

[00:34:18] Martin Aldergard: Yeah, and GerritI think like this. If you have done these four things above here: You've been able to communicate, you co-created you take care of the inclusive mindset, and you do it with trust. People, they, they will be motivated to move forward. You, you do get the buy in, you mobilize. People are inspired because they are actually getting the chance to act on their own ideas what they have created together. Is there anything more to do, I mean, you get this as a bonus, right?

[00:34:57] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah, indeed. I mean, I also think now what else can we add? Of course there are many motivational models, and again, we discussed some of those in earlier episodes. Um, and I, I recommend every leader to also think about the theory, but you are, you're absolutely right. If we take care of the previous four skills and qualities, and of course the others that we presented earlier on the IDG, then we don't need to think much about, um, motivation.

[00:35:24] And I think what we can summarize here that the, this old idea of the carrot and the stick, which is another word of reward and punishment, these days are over. So the question is less about how do I reward and punish people? The question is, how can I tap into the intrinsic motivation of people? And so coming back to, um, engaging in a shared purpose. Right? Um, so once we, and, and, and like you said before, when we co-create the purpose, well then we have already buy in. 

[00:36:03] Martin Aldergard: Yeah. And I think as a leader, it's more when, when we have created this momentum, when we have mobilized the energy and the, and the power of the team, we just need to step aside. And we don't need to try to motivate people to create that performance. We just need to help them to perform, and then they will be motivated even more and they will be even more happier to go into even more co-creation. It's, it's like a reinforcing spiral.

[00:36:33] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah. I, I think here, back to two practical examples in terms of co-creation and the shared purpose. Uh, you will remember well once we together worked with an organization to co-create a vision and bring it to life as ex external facilitators and, and coaches. And I think that was a wonderful experience because it was not, like you said earlier, this traditional top down approach, the five top people of the organization sit together and, uh, lock them in over a weekend, and on Monday they come back and inform the rest of the organization about the new vision. And uh, one company that was really extremely, what should I say, integrative, uh, was the sports company, um, Decathlon. So they made their process of vision-creation public on their website and they're really literally involved everyone. So not only people in the organization, but customers, suppliers, and the public. And how powerful is this then? Um.

[00:37:40]  Mobilization is, is reallyto bring out this inner motivation and, and do this with a huge collective.

[00:37:49] Gerrit Pelzer: And so it comes also back then when you have this shared purpose. You said earlier something can I trust that I have the right people on board? So hiring the right people then becomes very important because once you have this shared purpose, vision and goals, then you must hire people who are aligned with this. And then you also need to make sure then in daily life that you as a leader and everybody else also role models the values. 

[00:38:18] Martin Aldergard: Hmm. Any, any reflection questions here, Gerrit? 

[00:38:22] Gerrit Pelzer: Um, well, let's say many companies, they will have already an existing vision. And the first question is eventually, do we need to revisit this? Do we need to involve people to adjust the vision? Second question would be, how compelling is the vision? If I, if I read it, do I feel energized that I wanna work towards this vision? And is it, uh, easy to understand?

[00:38:52] Martin Aldergard: Hmm, I, I have a reflection question around mobilization: As a leader, if I feel that my team is not as excited as I wish, if I feel they are not driving things hard enough as I wish it would happen, what could I have done different in terms of driving this intrinsic motivation. Have I communicated? Have I co let them co-create? Have I built the right trust? What is holding them back?

[00:39:26] Gerrit Pelzer: Beautiful.

[00:39:28] Martin Aldergard: Yeah, I think now we are coming really to the end, we have talked a long time. And I think this, this episode on collaboration is such an important stepping stone before coming to Acting, which is the final, uh, category in the IDG model. And, and acting really being the skills that we use as leaders to help drive change and achieve the transformation and the results we want to see.

[00:39:54] Gerrit Pelzer: Yeah,

[00:39:55] Martin Aldergard: And, and we will talk about this in our next episode. That is it for, for our episode today. To make sure that you don't miss any new episodes, you can simply subscribe   to Second Crack the Leadership Podcast on any of the major podcast platforms. And if you leave a positive comment or rating, that will certainly make us very happy.

[00:40:17] Yes.

[00:40:18] Gerrit Pelzer: More info about us and our work is also on our website. That's secondcrackleadership.com, secondcrackleadership is one word. And I think all we can say is bye for now, and until next time.

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