Ben Pearce (00:01.944)
Hey folks and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. Thanks for tuning in. It is a real pleasure to have you with us. Now, today we're continuing our journey to building amazing teams. know, being part of a great team is one of the most important and fulfilling things in your career. And whether you're the leader or a team member, you're a crucial part of that team. Now, our guest today,
is a real expert in this area. He is the founder of Craft Your Culture. He spent years in the tech industry and now helps organisations build high performance cultures. So please welcome to the podcast, Sean O'Shea. Sean, it is brilliant to have you with us.
Sean Michael O'Shea (00:52.401)
What an amazing introduction that is, Ben. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the conversation, mate. Especially if you come with that level of energy throughout.
Ben Pearce (00:58.574)
I think I could keep it up for maybe the length of the podcast and then after that I could crawl into a small room and recover for a while I think in the duck. Now, John, for all of our wonderful listeners out there, could you introduce yourself?
Sean Michael O'Shea (01:03.313)
Hahaha
What if worth the crash?
Sean Michael O'Shea (01:17.691)
Yeah, very happy to, Ben. So I'm Sean O'Shea. I run a company called Craft Your Culture. We've been running now for just over two and a half years. And as you said, Ben, this is all about how you design high-performance cultures. But my background is really in that technology sector. For about 20 years now, I've worked in a variety of different sides of tech companies, 10 years at Microsoft, three and a half years running a technical consultancy startup that was during the pandemic.
And all of that time, my role was always around how do you deliver growth? That was always my focus. So sales and leadership roles, not a day spent in HR. But then after all that time, I just became so obsessed with this idea of culture and how do you create high performance in groups of people? I thought better just go and explore it and start it. And so that's where I am today.
Ben Pearce (02:10.094)
Brilliant. And for regular listeners, they know my background is Microsoft. I don't think we actually cross paths at Microsoft that I'm aware of. Did we ever meet from your perspective that you remember? Yeah, as I asked that question, I thought, why did I ask that question? But, and so the reason that I got you on the podcast was there was just a day, it must have been a few weeks ago, now maybe even a month or two, I can't remember.
Sean Michael O'Shea (02:21.148)
It be slightly awkward now if I said we did. So I'm going to go with we didn't.
Ben Pearce (02:37.462)
where I had two meetings and both of these people said, independently, you need to get Sean O'Shea on your show. well, I thought, if two people I know and trust are telling me I need to get you on the show. And so we met, we've had a chat and I thought you've got some really interesting things to say. And so here we are today.
Sean Michael O'Shea (02:58.362)
No, good. Well, obviously that's very kind of them and it sets a massive level of pressure on me now to perform to that level of expectation, but we'll see how we get on.
Ben Pearce (03:02.19)
you
Ben Pearce (03:07.406)
Well, let's start to dig into the topic a little bit. And you spend your time working with all these different teams in tech. What's the landscape like at the moment?
Sean Michael O'Shea (03:19.484)
It's, you know what, it's a real privilege as well to do what I do because, you know, I'm obsessed with people and how they behave, the decisions they make, why we are in certain group situations, the way we are. And to do my job, it's almost like I'm being paid to do the thing that I'm a real geek about. So, you know, I love the thing that I do and we get to spend our time in really different environments as well. you know, one week we can be at kind of Salesforce, Google, Microsoft.
The next moment we're at a small startup in Wales, the next day we're in a of a FinTech company that's got various offices across the world. So you can work with companies that are 50 people, kind of founder led tech companies. You can work with large enterprises of five, 600 people, or you can work with the big global corporates as well. And in any one week, you can be doing one, two or all three of those different customers. And that is a wonderful privilege. But you get to see some...
really consistent things. All of those are within the tech landscape. So that's an important caveat to make here. But there are, answer to your question, some really interesting things that are coming out in that landscape at the moment. I'm gonna give you a couple on here without wishing to bore people, but the big ones I see, the first one is this idea of there's just absolute constant, constant change happening in all of those different types of sizes of companies at the moment. What I see in the big corporates is,
Ben Pearce (04:44.364)
Okay.
Sean Michael O'Shea (04:46.128)
They really wanna be first with AI. So whether you're working with a Google or Microsoft or Salesforce or an Amazon, whoever, there's this absolute urge now to be first with AI. And what that's leading to is so much noise and so much expectation from the top level of the company that it's really hard for teams to cope now because they're trying to be first, but there's often not enough substance behind them.
to help them go out to market to see customers, et cetera, with all the things that are happening. So they often find that they're behind even what customers are seeing in terms of developments with AI. That can be a really disconcerting experience for people. Now, when I was at Microsoft, when we may or may not have met, Ben, that was during the time that kind of cloud became a thing and we were like moving from on-premises to cloud. And we were moving from this idea of like four and five year release cycles.
Ben Pearce (05:30.567)
you
Sean Michael O'Shea (05:42.225)
I think a lot of teams and a lot of people still that went through that age are finding this a real disruptive experience to be in this constant change cycle that we're in now. And what we also see then as part of this change is that there's loads of priorities. There's loads and loads of like, this is a priority today, this is a priority today. And so teams are getting cascaded all these priorities all the time. And if you ask teams now, what do you need to achieve in the next year? They can be fairly consistent.
If you ask those teams, what do you need to do in the next week? The answers are wildly different. And that's because we're seeing so many flip-flopping changing priorities from executives because of all the things that are happening, AI being one of them, but not the only one. You know, slightly unhelpful policy changes by Donald Trump potentially being another, but all of these things are impacting at a team level. And with all of that uncertainty and ambiguity and all of this change,
One of the natural reactions we see from leaders is to apply more scrutiny and monitoring because they want to create some sense of control over what's happening. And it's well intentioned, but it just means all of this kind of more measurement and more need for information is taking more more time away from people. So there's this one theme of kind of constant change. The next theme is around noise, internal noises at an all time high.
You know, if you look at the most recent Microsoft Work Trend Index report, if I've got the name right, they said in that there was 240 interruptions per day that everyone's experiencing. Right, so that is one every two minutes in an eight hour day. And that is conservative because that's just the Microsoft ecosystem, which is incredible. It takes our brains up to 13 minutes to reorientate if we're deep focused on something and we get interrupted. It can take up to 13 minutes to get that level of attention and focus back.
on that, so it's a really noisy environment. And all of the scrutiny and monitoring that I talked about before, that manifested meetings, more and more meetings from leaders from around the business that are wanting this information from people. And to be honest, the thing that I hear the most now is people are exhausted. If I think about the overall picture at the moment, I used to talk about this as distraction, an era of distraction. I actually think now it's an era of disorientation.
Sean Michael O'Shea (08:09.178)
I think that's where we are. We've moved from people being distracted to now people being disorientated. And it's a really difficult thing for people to work in. And the last theme that I think is significant is that we're seeing a real distance between people now. And I don't just mean physically. Yes, we've had the whole return to work office mandates from companies that are trying to get people back in physically in the same place.
but we still have a very dispersed workforce generally. And so people are physically in the, they're less often with each other. The pace is frantic. So there's no, there's no gap between meetings for any kind of ad hoc discussion to take place. But equally, we're seeing the rise now of this interaction and reliance on AI, your co-pilot or whatever framing you want to provide it, where people now have a 24 seven place to ask questions. And that used to be colleagues.
Colleagues would normally call each other, contact each other and say, you know, how do I sort this out? Can you help me with this? I'm struggling with this. A lot of that traffic now is going to AI, which is good in many ways. But what it stops is this building of relationships that we've so naturally had in the workplace over time. And then the output of all this is that relationships just aren't as strong now. They're just not as strong. In every team we work with, we see real surface level.
relationships and that's just not effective. You know, if your relationship with somebody is at a surface level and you're in this kind of comfort zone, then that's not a place where good debate, good feedback, good challenge can live because you don't have strong foundations from which to do that. So, you know, in answer to your question, there are loads of things that we're seeing across all the different types of organizations we're working with. But if I could bring together three, that kind of constant change, the massive internal noise,
And then that distance between people and that growing distance, I think they're the main three that I'm seeing. And we're seeing those at all levels of company.
Ben Pearce (10:13.986)
Yeah, I mean, it's reasonably, reasonably bleak picture that you're painting there. But do know what? think I recognise all of those things that you're saying from the organisations I've been working with, from the friends I've got working in many different companies. I think I recognise that. And then I'd also lay on that it feels like...
Sean Michael O'Shea (10:18.949)
Hahaha
Ben Pearce (10:42.194)
And I think it's maybe related to that change, but there is so much uncertainty at the moment in the world and And it and it's not just tech. I think it's a lot of tech But for example just before we jumped on we were talking about sports days because we're just recording this at the end of The the term and I was at the parent sports day just yesterday and I spoke to people from life sciences legal software building floor fitting
all of these different all of them were having a difficult time at the moment actually with going we're not hitting our numbers or there's been redundancies or so it feels like you've got all of those things that you talked about and an uncertain economic environment at the moment that's sort of the foundation of a lot of this stuff as well
Sean Michael O'Shea (11:32.548)
Yeah, that's right. mean, by the way, congratulations on coming in third in the dad race. I think we should recognise that. Second.
Ben Pearce (11:36.014)
Can I say it was second? Can I say it was second? Second and I lost, you know, to a teaching assistant who was about 19. So I think it's a fair loss. So we'll call it a proud second.
Sean Michael O'Shea (11:46.489)
yes, you did say that, yeah.
Sean Michael O'Shea (11:51.119)
Yeah, good, good, good, good. Sorry for downplaying that, by the way. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. But I think you're right. I think your point around the uncertainty of the environment is absolutely true. And for some, that's a real exciting place to be. Because you've got with uncertainty becomes there's loads of opportunities. So many companies are born from moments of uncertainty, whether it's this kind of collision of
Ben Pearce (11:55.76)
That place matters!
Ben Pearce (12:12.173)
Yeah.
Sean Michael O'Shea (12:18.394)
the right time, the technology being in the right place, the gap in the market being apparent, you having the idea and the resources to do it. So many of these amazing companies like Netflix or whoever, they happened because of a coalition or a collision, sorry, of all those different factors happening at the same time. And with AI being where it is right now, suddenly our ability to try things and to experiment is at an all time high and the cost of that is at an all time low.
cost both in terms of time and money. So there's lots of good that comes with this, but the overwhelming level of uncertainty is not a healthy place for our brains to be. We see this in teams and individuals all the time. There's nothing more scary for our brains to cope with than something that's uncertain. That is the thing that triggers our amygdala in our brains more than anything else. This fear of not knowing or fear specifically
of something happening that's not what was expected. And when we're triggered in that way, we have a natural internal response. know, our amygdala fires, that releases cortisol into our system. Cortisol is the stress hormone. You know, it impacts and inhibits our ability to recall our short-term memory. So we're then not as able to recall those things that we had to hand just moments before. All of the energy in our brain.
moves from that kind of prefrontal cortex where your decision making and your executive function goes and it moves then and reallocates to helping your brain and your body deal with the threat. So all these things are happening when we feel like we're under threat and the thing that triggers that threat response so much is uncertainty and something happening that's not what we expected. So you've got to be really intentional about how we navigate through these periods and learn how we can be
effective despite the uncertainty that we're in. And some people are really good at that. Some people find it naturally much more difficult, but you can train yourself to be good at that.
Ben Pearce (14:22.956)
Well, so let's start to dig into that. So maybe before we get to the team, think about it as a team. Let's think about it with individuals. So if you're an individual in a team where there's high levels of disruption, change, the pace is fast, lots of noise, uncertainty, measuring going on, how can people deal with that?
Sean Michael O'Shea (14:44.292)
Yeah, so the first bit of advice I always give is when we are under pressure, when we're in this environment, if we imagine ourselves now in this frantic work environment, we've got massive pressure on us, we've got loads of things we need to do, and there's more and more noise happening all the time that's interrupting us. We feel behind on the work we're doing, we're struggling with the things that we're trying to do, we're isolated maybe from our teammates. If we imagine a worst case scenario, which is the most likely to trigger
that kind of threat response and this kind of feeling of overwhelm and burnt out. The first thing I say is you need to remember that everything you're experiencing in your body and in your brain is within your control. But what we do as humans naturally is go quite introspective and we take worst case lens on it. So for example, if I'm struggling with work and things are going wrong and I'm finding it difficult, my first thought is that's my fault. I'm not good enough.
to do that. And so you make it a very introspective, negative experience and your body responds in that way. And so physiologically, we are responding as if it is our fault because our brain is telling us that's the case. So one of the most powerful things you can do is simply reframe in your mind what is going on. If you're in this kind of like, can't do this, I'm not good enough mindset, then just reframe it and say, okay.
This is difficult, and I'm learning how to deal with adversity. I can see that I'm handling these bits quite well, and I'm finding these bits hard. So let's think about a small change I can make next week around something that I can try to adjust how I'm dealing with the things that I'm finding difficult. And therefore you can learn how to make something that you're finding very difficult a different experience, and your body and your brain will respond to that reframe.
The more you practise that reframe, the more powerful it is. I've studied behavioural science for a year and honestly understanding how much control we actually have over our brain and our emotions was one of the biggest, most important things I've ever learnt. Because once you control that, you're going back to that point when we feel under threat and your amygdala's firing and your cortisol is released and all of your kind of resources in your brain are pulled away from the executive function.
Sean Michael O'Shea (17:08.762)
If you get control over that, imagine that. If you get control over that in a moment of crisis and you stop the cortisol being released and you stop their physiological response of your heart beating faster and your body heating up and all this kind of different stuff, and you can maintain good executive function in that moment, then that is an amazing place to be. That's a really valuable thing for employees. That's why we see such value placed on emotional intelligence now, because
One of the aspects of emotional intelligence is how you regulate your emotions. And that is being valued more and more and more in the workplace because of the experiences that people are having. And leaders that are able to regulate their emotions by understanding that ability to reframe and that ability to control how they're responding to situations and having that executive function in the moment of a crisis is so valuable now to companies. So the first bit of advice is around the reframe.
Ben Pearce (18:07.83)
Yeah, and I think I completely agree with you. I as you know, I spend a lot of time working with people about how they present and communicate and that kind of stuff, which scares a lot of people. The process you're talking about, there are a lot of people get when they're about to get on stage in front of people or stand up at a team meeting and that kind of stuff. And I always remember, went on a course years ago and they had...
I think I might have even talked about it on the podcast before, but they had the women's volleyball, US volleyball team from the 2012 Olympics that were now doing some high performance mindset stuff. And the terminology they used, I really loved, they called about your level of activation, like how activated you were. And at a 10, that's full panic attack and zero is asleep. And therefore they talked about finding your five, because like you're saying, you've got your rational decision-making.
Sean Michael O'Shea (18:58.811)
Yeah.
Ben Pearce (19:03.192)
you've got some energy in life, you're not asleep, but you're not getting into that I'm forgetting things, I'm sweating things. And so they called it finding your five and they were going through a number of techniques on how to just calm yourself because then you'll make better decision making. And that reframing I think is a really important part of it.
Sean Michael O'Shea (19:21.136)
Yes, I love that analogy. I have something similar, but it's not the 10th. So I'm going to steal that from there. thank you, Ben. But the way that I talk about it, as I talk about it, imagine like three circles and the middle kind of bullseye circle is your comfort zone. That's where we spend most of our time. That's a good thing. Being in your comfort zone means that you're being very efficient with the level of energy you're using cognitively. That's our least amount of exertion that we'd have in that area.
Ben Pearce (19:25.804)
Yeah
Sean Michael O'Shea (19:50.481)
The next layer out then is your learning zone. That's where you're stretching outside of your learning zone. So that might be talking at an event, like you said, or it might be giving a presentation or whatever it is to you that you find is a stretch away from your comfort zone. And that's where you expend a little bit more energy. That's where you're cognitively doing something that's a bit different, like you're learning to do something for the first time. That feels a bit more of an intense experience that requires more cognitive energy. But then the outer ring outside of those two is your stress.
area and that's where you can't live for any kind of sustained period of time and it's also not an area where you're cognitively as effective as you'd like to be.
Ben Pearce (20:30.606)
Yeah, interesting. Love it. Right, let's move on, Shaun. So we thought a little bit about a great technique for individuals that are in that washing machine of life at the moment in Teams. Let's start to think about Teams maybe. So what's the culture like from a Teams perspective that you see at the moment? What are the good bits you're seeing and what are the bad bits you're seeing?
Sean Michael O'Shea (20:58.66)
Yeah, so with all the teams that we work with now, we see some really consistent things. The pace is exhilarating, right? So the speed that teams are working at now is just unprecedented towards anything I've ever seen in any organization I've worked in previously. And if you are a person that really thrives in ambiguity and not needing detail,
then at the moment, tech is quite a good place to be. We see so much value now on getting something to 75 % and out. Get it 75 % and get it out to the customer or whatever it needs to go next. Getting to 100 % is not as valued. And there's a lot of good reason for that, right? If you're trying to get everything to 100%, you can already be late as a result. But also getting things to 100 % means that you haven't tested it, you haven't failed, you haven't tried, made mistakes.
Ben Pearce (21:31.15)
You
Sean Michael O'Shea (21:57.469)
openly, publicly, you've just been working on your own to get that thing to 100%. So there's a real exhilarating pace that we're seeing at the moment and companies and teams learning how to normalise their relationship with mistakes and failure. And that is a really good thing. You the better we can get in the workplace at rethinking how we see and feel about mistakes and failure is a big thing. And I'm seeing that now in teams because
if we're trying to get things out quickly all the time, we're gonna make so many mistakes. And so that's a really healthy thing that we're seeing. And then this idea of like, the opportunity is vast. We're seeing so much innovation in how people in teams are trying different things, doing things differently. The rule books are being completely rewritten or completely scrapped. And there's so much now opportunity to try doing things.
differently and there's loads of good things that come from that as well because you know what we've seen before is that managers will often lead teams in the mold of what they did that worked for them. know a manager will lead a team and say I was the best at doing my job and often unfortunately that means they get promoted into a manager role without actually them being a good manager and what they'll do then is they'll lead that team in their mold. I did this really well, right my team I'm going to teach you how to do this really well. That doesn't work anymore because
even the two, three, four more years that they've been outside of doing the job, all of the things that they did are now redundant pretty much. So it has to open now this really healthy dialogue and relationship between teams and their managers where they're having to learn together. So that's another really healthy thing that we're seeing. Some things that I think, you know, if you were a manager of a team listening to this, and there are some things that you were thinking about that could improve, I think the thing that we're seeing is
The ability for people to share learning is an area that most teams are struggling with right now. We do a culture diagnostic test as one of the services we provide. And we look at how teams are culturally set up to deliver growth against five different ingredients. And the ingredient that always comes up as the one that people are struggling with in the team the most is how they're sharing knowledge with one another. And what's happening is lots of people doing their own thing.
Sean Michael O'Shea (24:20.966)
We talked about the relationship people would have with their AI assistant or co-pilot now and how that's pulled them away from their team. Everyone's too busy for ad hoc contact and for sharing things and team meetings are often rammed with agenda items and managers broadcasting information at their people. And so the opportunity to genuinely share effective learning with one another has really reduced.
and is at a minimal level right now. So that's an area where I think a lot of work could be done to improve that.
Ben Pearce (24:55.342)
Well, let's start to dig into then how we can make our teams better. So have you got any sort of practical, tangible advice on how we can make our teams better?
Sean Michael O'Shea (25:08.284)
millions. Yeah. So in the spirit of this being a time bound podcast, I will try and pick a couple of big, powerful, but easy to apply pieces of advice. So let's go. Let's go for that. All right. So the first one I'd say is, if you're leading a team and you want to improve their culture and you want to help them be more effective as individuals, but specifically as a team, one of the first things I would say is
Ben Pearce (25:13.358)
Yeah.
Ben Pearce (25:21.87)
Perfect.
Sean Michael O'Shea (25:37.329)
define what you're aiming at first. As a leader, think about what it is that your team is aiming at. What's the goal over the financial year? And be really clear then, when you understand that, about what the behaviors, the mindsets, and the characteristics are that you will need from your people to get to deliver that success. Once you have that, then you just work back. And you just think about being very intentional about rewarding.
those behaviors and those mindsets when you see them in the moment. And when you're not seeing them, being very open to exploring why they're not happening. So let's take an example. Let's say that one of your goals as a team is to launch a new product and something new. But at the same time, you need the team to deliver the business as usual as well as doing the new thing. It's a very common thing we're seeing in teams at the moment. Push to do the new thing, but don't forget the thing you're.
you're having to do really well at the moment as well to keep all the money coming in. So it's a real, you know, consistent tension that we see. So what behaviors or mindsets might you need to see if that's success? Well, you might need people to be really good at prioritizing. You might need to see people being masters of prioritization. You might need to see people being really good at managing virtual teams because you might need to pass some BAU stuff on to others in the business in order for you to spend the time and the headspace on the new stuff.
And it might be that you need people to be really good at handling rejection. When they're trying to do the new stuff, they're getting it wrong, customers saying no, people internally, know, challenging them or whatever. So you might need to get really good at handling rejection. So maybe they're the three things that you define as critical behaviors that you need to see from your people in order for your team to deliver success. And when you have that, then you've got to be really intentional about praising and rewarding when you see them happen. That doesn't have to be financial.
People respond really powerfully in a group dynamic to somebody in authority saying, well done, Ben. I love the way that you just shared how you're now managing that virtual team and how you've been able to balance the BAU with the new by this new approach. That's amazing. Really, really pleased with that. That person will feel really good. Ben will feel really good in that environment, but it's a signal to everybody else in that room that that behavior was praised. And the more that happens, the more likely that behavior will become.
Sean Michael O'Shea (27:59.965)
It's the social norm that you're trying to build. But equally, when you're not seeing behaviors happen, when you see an opportunity for somebody in a, I don't know, a team meeting that could have talked about a rejection that you know they had, but they're not sharing it, then maybe you have a conversation with them one to one and just say, look, Ben, why didn't you talk about that? I'd love you to have talked about that. What was holding you back from sharing that? Because that would have been so valuable to me and to everybody. Tell me what it is that I can do.
to make it so that you feel comfortable to share that, because we'd love to hear from that. And when you make those interventions, you're gaining information, you're understanding the dynamic and what exists in that team. And that helps then you to be more intentional about adjusting the culture to enable those behaviors that you need to see happen.
Ben Pearce (28:50.776)
So if I just sort play back what I think I've heard you say is it's about getting real clarity on where you're trying to go, which therefore allows you to really define your key priorities and then using this reward and correction kind of approach to really try and get people to change that behaviour, focus on those key priorities and hopefully drive the team forward.
Sean Michael O'Shea (29:19.142)
Pretty much, yeah. Define what you're aiming at. Then understand the three, I'd say no more than three, behaviors or mindsets that will make that goal achievable. And then really be intentional about rewarding when it happens and being curious when it doesn't and adjusting your culture as you see fit.
Ben Pearce (29:37.614)
Yeah, and it's interesting because one of the things that you mentioned is a work back plan, which is Really really interesting. So I love them and I'll tell you why I love work back Plans. I'm I'm a lazy monkey. I can I can tell you that and unless I've got some pressure I'd rather probably watch Netflix or sit and twiddle around on my guitar. Do you know what mean? But if I've got pressure then I get focused I get in the zone and stuff gets done
And quite often when you've got like this big long diary, yeah, sorry, this big long goal that's like a year away, six months away, three months away, I'm happy to leave it for two months, two weeks, and then just try and nail it in the last two weeks. But when I force myself to do a work back plan and go, right, so to do that, I need to do that, and to do that, I need to do that, and to do that, I need to do that, and suddenly I go, I've got to this thing done next week.
And so it creates some reality of if I want to do a good job, which I do, I actually there is a bit of pressure to do some of these things now and to put the box set of 1883 or whatever it is I'm watching on Netflix away and and you know, focus on those sorts of things. But then the flip side is and this goes back to your ambiguity is knowing what the goal is to then create a work back plan.
If you're changing focus and you were talking about this word where we're flip-flopping around all the time and you put all this effort in one thing to then flip and flop to something else and you feel like you've wasted all of that stuff, have you got any thoughts on that?
Sean Michael O'Shea (31:06.107)
Yeah.
Sean Michael O'Shea (31:17.22)
Yeah, I think it's a real common scenario as well. The way that I suggest, if you're in a team and you're experiencing that, I would say it's really healthy to have a conversation with your manager and say, can you just be really clear, what are the top three things? If I can only do three things this quarter, what are those three things? And I want that to be agreed today so that then I can be clear on focusing on that for the next quarter. I think a quarter is better than a month because then that can be subject to change, but.
If you can have that conversation with your manager and you can agree that, then you can hold them to account for you spending that time on those three things. know, frame it in a, imagine I've got 80 % of my time to do three things, what are those three things? And what you'll find from that conversation is that either the manager will be really able and clear to give that answer or they'll struggle. And if they struggle, that's because they're not asking the same from their leader. And so hopefully then that behavior then passes up the chain.
to try and get that clarity over the next at least three month period.
Ben Pearce (32:19.288)
Okay, like it. Any other key areas to focus on to make our teams better?
Sean Michael O'Shea (32:27.258)
Yeah, so that was the one of the one million, the two of the one million and the last of the one million that we're going to do today. And this is one of my ones that I talk about no matter what. In every organisation and team we work with, we always think about this specific environment and we create our approach depending on whatever environment is that we're working in and the company and all the rest of it. But there is, this one is absolutely consistent no matter what. My advice to any...
manager, aspiring leader, executive at the moment is to see one of your primary functions to be relationship builders. Everybody should be thinking about now, how do we connect our people better? Because as I said before, people are generally further apart than they've ever been. And this is in society. Without wishing to get too existential about it, we all live in our bubbles. You just talked about Netflix. Your Netflix will look different to mine because your Netflix will know what you like.
and it will know what I like. And 80 % of what we watch on Netflix is based on recommendations that the algorithm serves to us. If we're on Twitter or X, we're following people that we wanna follow. If we're on Facebook, we're connected to our friends that we've decided we're like. If we're on, know, all of these platforms are curating what we, the world that we experience because it's learning what we like and what we engage with and it shows us that stuff. So we increasingly live in bubbles in our personal lives.
in the workplace, that was usually a place where we'd learn how to work with and forge relationships with people that were different to us. It's the only environment where we're forced into that. But if we're now more distant, then we're not learning those skills of how to work with people that are different to us. And if we don't have that, if we're operating in teams that don't have good relationships with one another, then all the impact of that are things like we're not able to have conversations around challenging one another.
We're not able to debate situations. We're not able to share ideas. We're not able to say, I need some help. We're not able to say, I'm struggling. All of those things don't happen in relationships, in teams where there's not strong relationships. And so one of the most powerful things any leader can now do is have a personal responsibility to think, A, I need to think about the relationships in my team and how I make them stronger. But B, how do I broaden the relationships of my team out?
Sean Michael O'Shea (34:54.182)
to the wider company. Think of everybody in your team having two numbers. You can even ask them, we do this sometimes. Ask everybody in your team and say, tell me how many people you have connections with or relationships with in the company. How many people do you know that maybe you could say hello to and you know who they are? And then tell me how many of those people could you pick up the phone and just say, I really need your help. Can you talk to me about this? And you feel comfortable to do that. Take those two numbers.
and then think one of your primary objectives is to increase those two numbers for every single one of your people. And genuinely, firstly, that will enable your team to be more successful. They'll solve problems quicker. They'll have more difficult conversations that need to be had. They'll be able to challenge one another. The debate will be better. Ideas will be heard. That's all good stuff. But equally, the byproduct of this, the second benefit, is the strain on the manager massively reduces.
because in teams that don't have strong relationships, all the noise goes up to the manager. And if you've got people that are better connected with one another and the wider business, then that noise is going elsewhere in a healthy way. And that reduces the strain on the leader. So if there's one thing that people get from this listening to me, it is that. That will be such a powerful thing that you could do for your team.
Ben Pearce (36:12.566)
Yeah I can agree more and I sometimes wonder if it's about my personality type, I sometimes wonder if it's about my age, you know the generation I am. So I'd be interested to get your perspective but I completely agree with you. If I think one of the main reasons that I succeeded in my corporate career
and that I am succeeding with his own business is because of the relationships that I invested in and that I built and if you've got a relationship with somebody
that you can talk to, then when you've got to have a hard conversation, it's so much easier. I'm thinking of one now where we've gone to some work events together, I've stood with them in an airport queue and talked to them about, I don't know, sports day or whatever it might be, whilst you're waiting for a security baggage check or whatever it is. And you just build a natural human relationship with somebody. And then actually it turns out you've got to a difficult conversation with somebody in a different department, because their team's doing something different and you need them.
And you've got a foundation from which to say, you I'm not an idiot shouting at you, I'm a rational human and we've got a relationship and there's something that we need to work on together. You can do that when you've got a relationship. And if you haven't, you're just a random AI bot or a random email or somebody with a load of values, I don't agree, or somebody that's been on a LinkedIn training course and has got a shiny profile, but is actually an idiot. You know, all of those things, but if you've got a real human relationship with them.
I just think that's how the world still goes around. So is that because I'm a bit old? Is that because of my personality type? Or do you think that's for everybody?
Sean Michael O'Shea (38:03.332)
I think that the world that we live in now is so quick and so disruptive that we don't have precedent to fall back on. So if you think about now trying to solve problems or grow your business, you can't look at a rule book and think this is what worked before, this is how it will work in the future. In a context like that,
where we can't anticipate what the next six months is gonna be like, let alone the next three years, the only thing that you really have is the ability to work well with everybody else around you so that you're all learning in real time. Because if you're all doing things to try and navigate this and you're sharing that, your ability to succeed will be exponentially better than a team of really talented individuals that are doing their own thing and not sharing that experience.
And I just think that is a truth that will become more prevalent over time. And yes, AI can do loads of good stuff and it can replace human work in so many different ways. But if we're still at the driving seat in terms of growing businesses and growing companies, then your people and their ability to work together will be the big determining factor. If AI is democratized and gives everybody the same ability to use it, then it's how your people work together.
that will be the thing that is the competitive advantage over your people that you're competing with.
Ben Pearce (39:34.329)
Yeah. Fascinating, Sean. Sean, I could talk to you about this all day. it almost feels like I've gotten to a of a therapy session there. Am I getting old? Is it just me? Yeah.
Sean Michael O'Shea (39:44.636)
You are getting old, just to be clear, yeah.
Ben Pearce (39:50.542)
But as I glance at the clock after that comment, it's almost time for us to wrap up the show. So I wonder, could you just maybe summarise, what would be your key takeaways that you'd like people to remember from this?
Sean Michael O'Shea (40:05.584)
Yeah, I think if there was just a couple of things, if we had to just a couple of things, I think one is please understand that your ability to control your emotions and your thoughts as you navigate this kind of adversity and uncertainty is within your control. And that is a wonderful gift when you can understand it and you can learn how to do it well. And it starts with just reframing that in your mind. So that's the first one I'd say is just understand that and practise that.
And the second thing then is back to the relationships. The people that will succeed in business will be the ones that have the most connections to call on to work within the strongest relationships with those people. And so whether you're a leader or an individual contributor and you're navigating your career, think about that as something that you could really accelerate your success if you're intentional about doing it well.
Ben Pearce (40:57.006)
Yeah, love it. Love it. And I think just for me, as I sort of reflect on what we've talked about, you know, I love that, you know, you are not just the product of things that happen to you. You can reframe, choose your response and
and affect that. So the fact that you can control things, control the controllables, you can't control everything, but you can control your response. You can control how you react to the environment and the situation you're in. So I think that's just really important. And then I've also really loved just digging into that, the import of relationships. And when everything is changing, there is this level of disruption, pace, noise.
having relationships with people so that if you don't know the answer, they may well know the answer or can point you in the right direction and they're happy to do that and work with you because you've invested in that relationship with them. Really, really important stuff.
So thank you so much for taking the time to share that with us. Now, if people have really enjoyed the conversation we've been having and this topic is of real interest to them, how can people get in touch with you, do more stuff with you?
Sean Michael O'Shea (42:09.948)
Yeah, so we've got everything that we learn we give away for free. It's a terrible business model, but so if you follow me on LinkedIn, that's a good place to take everything and not give me any money. If you were interested in this idea of future ready leadership skills, we think there's a massive gap in this area at the moment. 49 % of managers are currently saying they're not trained at all in leadership. And actually, when we look at what's available, it's just not fit for purpose for the environment that we've been exploring today.
So we are creating what we call Culture Labs, which is professional development experiences for people that are wanting to develop those skills, either as aspiring leaders or existing managers and executives. And they launched in September. And so you can find those on our website, craftyourculture.co.uk. You'll find them under Culture Labs. And if you're listening to this podcast, then you get a discount code as well. So you get a hundred pound off the ticket.
And that discount code is LABS 2025, L-A-B-S 2025. There's only 15 places per lab though. So if you do go home when you listen to this and they've gone, I'm really sorry. Contact me on LinkedIn and we'll let you know when the next one is.
Ben Pearce (43:08.942)
Woo.
Ben Pearce (43:24.846)
Brilliant, thank you. And I'll pop all of that in the show notes so that people can click that and I'll pop the code in there as well so that people can find that if you're busy walking your dog and haven't got a pen to hand at the moment. Well, thank you so much. It's been brilliant to talk to you. yeah, final things for me today before we sign off. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the energy. I've loved having you on the show. So thank you.
Sean Michael O'Shea (43:50.246)
Loved it, Ben. Really enjoyed it, mate. Thanks.
