176. Building Trusting Relationships at Work with Deborah Ancona

Do you sometimes struggle to build trusting relationships in your workplace, especially with the distance of remote and hybrid work?  You're not alone. In this episode, I talked with MIT Professor Deborah Ancona about the essential skills of inquiry, advocacy, and connecting that leaders can use to foster trust inside and outside their organizations. Discover the power of balancing these skills in a distributed leadership model, and learn practical steps to cultivate strong external networks. Listen to find out how these strategies can enhance team dynamics and drive exceptional results. Key topics include:

• Distributed Leadership Model: In an exponentially changing world, it’s crucial to empower leadership at every level, not just the top. This decentralized approach ensures that leaders closest to the issues are making informed decisions in real time.

• Balancing Inquiry and Advocacy: A successful leader not only inquires and empathizes but also confidently advocates for their team’s needs. It's about creating a dialogue that allows for both understanding and strong representation.

• The Power of External Relations: Building an external network isn't just about casual conversation. It’s about intentional connections that can drive innovation and strategic insight, ensuring that both leaders and teams remain aligned with the rapidly evolving business landscape.

Resources:

• X-Teams: How to build teams that lead, innovate, and succeed

• X360 and XChange simulation

• Professor Ancona's LinkedIn

About Deborah:

Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at MIT Sloan and the Founder of the MIT Leadership Center. Her work centers on the individual leadership capabilities, team dynamics, and organizational structures that enable innovation in an exponentially-changing world. Her work also looks at how early family dynamics impact leaders' ability to change. Her work has been published in top academic journals and managerial outlets like HBR and SMR. She has consulted to organizations around the world in pharma, tech, as well as non-profits.

Transcript

While it's not perfect, we offer this transcription by Castmagic for those who prefer to read or who are hearing impaired.

Teri Schmidt [00:00:00]:

Welcome Deborah to the Strong Leaders Serve podcast. I'm looking forward to our conversation today and honored to have you on the show.

Deborah Ancona [00:00:07]:

Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and to learn more about what you are interested in and what your followers are interested in.

Teri Schmidt [00:00:19]:

Wonderful. Well, as I mentioned, I did have a conversation recently with Henrik, your coauthor as well, and and that was fascinating. And I look forward to digging in specifically to one element of x teams. As I mentioned on the episode with him, I was fascinated by the book and highly recommended to everyone who is interested. And he mentioned also. Yeah. Of course. Of course.

Teri Schmidt [00:00:44]:

And he mentioned also the additional resources that you have available, like the simulation and and the feedback tool. And so, hopefully, by this time, people have checked that out. But if not, that is another reminder to do so. But I'd love to hear your specific story. You know, what what was the moment or experience that you would say first

Deborah Ancona [00:01:11]:

Yeah. It's an interesting question and and one that I actually haven't asked myself very much. But if I stop for a moment and think about it, I think the first moment was when I started studying psychology in college and learning about teams and was just stunned at the impact that teams can have on the people that are in those teams, silencing themselves, having some people take over, some people being scapegoated. The idea that we actually shift the way we see things because of being in a group. So there's there's this conformity push in in the team. And so I became very interested in in those dynamics. I'm also very interested in family and families and family systems. And a family is also like a team.

Deborah Ancona [00:01:59]:

So it has its own dynamics. So when I learned that you could actually make a living studying teams and doing research and teaching, I said, oh, wow, this is this is exciting. And interestingly, a lot of the things that I learned early on turned out not to be correct when we study teams in the business context. And so it's been a very fun journey kind of following the data. So I would say that there's an innate fascination with what is going on in teams.

Teri Schmidt [00:02:30]:

Right. Right. Yeah. And and now you've peaked my interest. I'm a I'm a big data person, so I'd love to hear if there's one that you can share. One thing that you did learn about Teams that you then came to learn wasn't actually accurate or maybe not as accurate as you originally

Deborah Ancona [00:02:49]:

thought? Well, and Henrik may have spoken about this as well, but the the original study that we did looked at all the things that we had learned about what makes teams effective. Clear goals, clear roles, synergy, trust, all of these things. And so the first study that we did was of or that I did was of some sales teams in the tele communications industry. And when we looked, it turned out that teams where people liked each other thought that they were doing really, really well. And when they followed all those rules of clear goals and clear roles, etcetera, subjectively, they thought they were doing real well. They were high performers. But when we looked at actual revenue attainment, those same dimensions did not hold water. It did not predict revenue.

Deborah Ancona [00:03:41]:

And that, that was a really scary thing for me. That was way back my my dissertation. And not having data that doesn't support your hypothesis is not good. But luckily, we got it published because we presented an alternative view, which is what the x teams ended up being, which is this idea of out before in. That it's not just how teams operate internally, but how they reach out across their boundaries that predict performance.

Teri Schmidt [00:04:09]:

Yeah. That that is fascinating. And, you know, as I mentioned, the leaders I work with, we call them compassionate driven leaders. So those two characteristics, and I could see how if you favor one over the other. So if you favor, you know, building that strong sense of I'm not gonna say belonging, but of liking each other within the team and aren't necessarily as focused on the driving the business results, which might require you to go out before in or or does require you to go out beforehand. I could see how you could get caught in that place where your team has excellent engagement but isn't driving the business results.

Deborah Ancona [00:04:52]:

Well and we have a lot of data. You're a David fan. That's good. That suggests that teams that are not externally oriented absolutely do not do as well, even though people like each other. If you're not kind of in sync with your environment, then the team can really go down into negative productivity. But the good news is that if you're active engaged with your external environment, doing what Henrik talked about ambassadorship, task coordination, and sense making, then you are more successful. And when you are more successful, then people feel good about the team and about each other and about their performance. And so it's kind of a backwards into feeling good in the team.

Deborah Ancona [00:05:36]:

So we don't want people to feel bad in the team. We want that both, both the external activity and internal sense of satisfaction.

Teri Schmidt [00:05:47]:

Yeah. Excellent. It's it's not one over the other. It you can have both, but it like you said, it it maybe it is about that order in terms of the going out and being externally focused before coming in, but but both are very important.

Deborah Ancona [00:06:03]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And we talk a lot about the external, but you're absolutely right. Keeping that balance is extremely important.

Teri Schmidt [00:06:10]:

Definitely. Well, I'd love to to focus in, on the leadership model that you talk a lot about in x teams. You talk about the value of creating a distributed leadership model. And I am curious, particularly in the business environment we're in right now, what makes that so important?

Deborah Ancona [00:06:29]:

Sure. Well, we we used to talk, about a VUCA world, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. But the world we're living in today is what we refer to as an exponentially changing world. That is, it is all of those other things. But the new wrinkle, as it were, is speed. It's not just that we're going fast, but we're accelerating. It's going faster and faster and faster and faster. And you just have to look in the world, AI is going in one direction, all of a sudden, there's some disruption, and we're going in another direction.

Deborah Ancona [00:07:02]:

So that speed is a critical part of our external environment. So in that kind of environment, what you don't want to do is have just leadership at the top, a it takes too long for leaders to prefer to go up and come down. And because of the complexity and the need to move so quickly, the person at the top doesn't necessarily have all the information and expertise that's needed. So you need what we refer to as distributed leadership, by which we simply mean leadership at every level, at the top and at the bottom. And so in that case, you want people at all levels to make decisions, you want the people who have access to the customers, to the technology, to the marketplace. Those are the people who you want in a decision making making mode. That said, it's not that we're getting rid of senior leadership. Senior leadership has a pivotal role to play.

Deborah Ancona [00:07:59]:

And one of the articles that I wrote with colleagues on nimble leadership. The senior level is what we call the architects. They have to architect the culture and the structure and the processes that get all of those other leaders aligned in the same direction. So they're all following the same strategy. They're all moving in in joint step with one another. And so the idea is to have leaders in sync and having the people who have the information and the expertise and and the timing right to be the ones making decisions. Yeah. You know, I love that.

Teri Schmidt [00:08:42]:

And it it brings up, you know, some challenges that I've heard from executives that I work with and, you know, they particularly new executives who are very concerned about not having direct access to, for example, the frontline workers anymore and and not having having that data and feeling that that is a lack. And I just I think it's reassuring to hear you talk about nimble leadership and it's not that they don't need that data, they don't need that direct access, but it sounds like their role is shifted to the point that if you have this distributed leadership model, they can operate in a way that that isn't as much of a lack because they have leaders at the other levels that do have access to that information. Did I understand that correctly?

Deborah Ancona [00:09:34]:

Yes. And it doesn't mean, so it means that senior leaders are not the sole decision makers, and that can also feel uncomfortable. Well, wait a second. I'm ceding power at some level, but they are creating, what we call the game board on which x teams and individual leaders are are working. So they have a very pivotal role. But you also doesn't mean that they have to be cut out of the information. There still could be communication, that links up to the top or moments check ins. Okay.

Deborah Ancona [00:10:12]:

What are you working on? What's going on? So that they do have a sense of what's going on. They don't have to put a barrier between what they're doing and lower level leaders.

Teri Schmidt [00:10:22]:

Right. Right. But it's not necessarily all on them.

Deborah Ancona [00:10:25]:

It's not all on them, and it's not daily keeping your fingers on the on the pulse of what's going on. It may be just periodic check ins.

Teri Schmidt [00:10:34]:

Right. Right. Exactly. Well, you know, getting into the continuing on that with the distributed leadership model, I know there are four skills that you focus in on, but the one that I really wanted to hone in on today, because I think it's critical for the leaders that listen, is that leadership skill of relating. So I wonder if you would define relating for me and talk about what makes it so important particularly in a organization where they are using a distributed leadership model that is full of x teams.

Deborah Ancona [00:11:07]:

Sure. Well, so very simple definition. We could get into a lot of more complexity. But, yeah, for us, very simply, it's creating trusting relationships with others, not just in your team, but also in your organization and in the external ecosystem. So it's that Eckstein philosophy of relating inside and, and outside. Different kinds of people, different on many, many dimensions. And so being able to act in that kind of environment requires some relating skills. And it's also important because we have to, as I said, move quickly.

Deborah Ancona [00:11:53]:

So that means you need to quickly be able to understand and empathize, have that, inquiry, work, understand the other people, but also advocate and negotiate for yourself as well as coaching people. So if you have much more distributed innovation, and distributed leadership, then people are sometimes doing work that that isn't necessarily comfortable for them, or might be new for them. And so this coaching capacity, so rather than doing, you're helping a lot of other people do the work. And and that's a form of relating as is, again, creating these external networks so that you can partner, so that you can learn, so that you can coordinate in a nimble way. You have to be able to move quickly, and that means being able to, pick up the phone or or send the email or whatever way we're currently communicating and say, hey. I have an idea. Do you wanna do this? How can we do this? And and moving very quickly. I love I I often show a video of, Jennifer Hyman, who's the founder of Rent the Runway.

Deborah Ancona [00:13:02]:

And she tells this great story of they're thinking about this new organizational form, this new business model, and her roommate cofounder says, well, who should we speak to about this? And, she said, well, Diane von Furstenberg. And the roommate says, well, do you know her? And so she says, no, not at all. But they they send umpteen different messages to Diane von Furstenberg in order and they get her and they're invited to a meeting. And she goes to the meeting. Three days after she has this idea is this quick, go pitch your idea, create a relationship so that you can understand what's the customer's perspective. What do I need to do to change? And and that rests on a fundamental boundary or fundamental base of relating.

Teri Schmidt [00:13:53]:

Mhmm. I love that story. And and your mention of, you know, both inquiry and advocacy, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. And I as I understand it, I often see leaders who have a preference for one over the other. So I'd I'd love to hear, first kind of a little bit more about your definition of what inquiry looks like and what advocacy looks like. But then second, why is it important to have the balance between those two as you are building relationships and building effective teams?

Deborah Ancona [00:14:27]:

Yeah. So for us, inquiry refers to an ability really to do what psychologists call perspective taking, to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Can I understand the world from your shoes? And if we're in negotiation, then I need to say, well, why do you want what you want so that you can get deeper down into understanding the motives and what's driving the other person. That's really, really important. But leaders can't just inquire. They also have their own agendas, and they need to be able to work and negotiate for those agendas advocate for what they think is important. So just as, as I might reach out to you and say, why are you working so hard to get x done? I also need to say, and this is why I think why is so important. This is this is my understanding.

Deborah Ancona [00:15:24]:

These are my data. This is my rationale. This is my experience. This is why I am and that affords just a place of dialogue. It's not, oh, I don't like what you say, and you don't like what I say. So we're done. And we're just in conflict, you need to be able to create some space for dialogue, and that's why you need both of those things.

Teri Schmidt [00:15:45]:

Yeah. For those leaders that, you know, maybe have a a preference for inquiry and are very curious, we've we've done, you know, several episodes about curiosity and about perspective taking. So for those leaders who are really comfortable in that, but maybe not as comfortable with the advocacy piece or maybe a little bit quieter about it, Have you seen, you know, best practices or anything that can help leaders get more in a balanced place?

Deborah Ancona [00:16:14]:

Yeah. Well, it's a great question. And, I actually, work with a lot of executives and a lot of female executives. I know you have a lot of women in the room. And I think there are several ways that I would look at that. The first is sometimes the people who are into inquiry, actually have this idea that advocacy is bad. Somehow it's bad. It's selfish.

Deborah Ancona [00:16:40]:

It's taking up too much room. It's pushy. It's political. And that's bad. And so if that is an issue, the first thing I suggest, I'm a huge, huge fan of reframe. How can you reframe it from I'm being selfish, I'm I'm pushy, I'm political to I'm representing my team and the needs of my team. That's what I'm doing, particularly for women. It's not just about me.

Deborah Ancona [00:17:10]:

It's also about it's from me to other. There is, I'm paid to have an impact on strategy and results. And in order to do that, I need to get my point of view across because that's doing my job. It's not being political, it's actually doing my job, or I need to clarify our priorities and interest, because otherwise, someone else is going to get the power and we're going to lose out. So not doing this is net net loss. So thinking about different ways to reframe what advocacy is, and maybe even get rid of the word. Get rid

Teri Schmidt [00:17:54]:

of the word. Right. If if

Deborah Ancona [00:17:56]:

if advocacy or politicizing whatever triggers you in some way that gets you in a negative path, then just think about it differently. I'm representing my team and all the work that we've done in order to improve the outcome. That's what this is about. Very different. If that doesn't really work in the spirit of distributed leadership, get someone else to do your your advocacy or your negotiating, you might come bring two of you. One does the inquiry, and the other does the advocacy for because there's some people, it's easy for some people, it's not a problem. So create some partnership or synergy with someone who has a good time doing it. The other piece, I would say, is around this idea of vicarious learning, which actually Henrik writes about quite a bit.

Deborah Ancona [00:18:48]:

And that is an idea of learn from others, watch other people. So find someone that you like and respect, not someone you think, oh, that person takes advantage of other people or is a jerk, someone that you actually like and respect, and maybe not just one person, but several, and watch them. What do they do? How do they speak? How do they bring their requests up? How do they not be pushy, but still get their point across? You have to be a little detective to see, okay, what are they doing? And then ask the question, what of those things might I bring into my leadership, my what we call leadership signature, my way of leading, and try those things on, experiment a little. If you don't change, then nothing else is gonna change. So it doesn't have to be you come in the next day and you're a ferocious negotiator. It's little steps that you can take and say, oh, well, this person just calmly presented the data as a different point of view, didn't get riled, didn't, you know, very calm. Okay. Why don't I try that the next time I'm in a conversation? So little mini steps that can perhaps bring you into a better a better stance on on advocacy.

Teri Schmidt [00:20:08]:

Yeah. Such such excellent and easy to implement ideas. I I know, you know, just going back to what you were saying at the beginning about how can you reframe this as seeing you advocating for your team or doing it for other people. I know a lot of the research particularly around female leaders

Deborah Ancona [00:20:27]:

Exactly.

Teri Schmidt [00:20:28]:

Says that, you know, if we can frame it from the perspective of how we are supporting others, that that tends to be a little bit more motivating or easy easier to implement. And then the piece about finding someone that you like and observing what they are doing, that that's just excellent in terms of having that example and also, you know, getting to your leadership signature, which I love that concept. I saw you just did a series on LinkedIn about that as well. And I, you know, I think if we can find a way to ground it in our values and know the why for our advocacy whether that is to support our team or whether that is to act in line with our values that can really make it a lot easier to get forward and do that advocacy that's necessary to be the leader that you need to be, be the leader that you were chosen to be by your organization.

Deborah Ancona [00:21:29]:

Absolutely. And just a shorthand on that, the way that we think about it is if you're having problems, there is kind of three, not only what I just talked about, but sort of three ways to think about it. One is from either or to both and. If you think I'm either good at inquiry or advocacy, then you're gonna pick inquiry if that's what you'd like. But we live in a world of both and so you can still be the nice leader who listens and empathizes and participates and you can add advocacy to something that you do. So it's both and not either or. It's, from hot to medium. Again, if advocacy or negotiating triggers you in some way, present it or think about it in a different way that doesn't feel as, as negative.

Deborah Ancona [00:22:21]:

And then the third one is what you were just talking about, which is, from self to other. Make it not just about you, but about how you help your team.

Teri Schmidt [00:22:30]:

Oh, those are great. It's great that you shorten that into three three tips that are easy to remember. Thank you for that. Sure. So one of the, themes that we're really focused on this year in strong on strong leaders serve is the theme of overwhelm due to being overloaded with work. And a lot of our leaders face that. And as I mentioned, you know, they're compassionate and driven, so they're not only concerned about getting the business results with all this work that's being piled on them, particularly for our middle manager listeners, but they're also concerned about taking care of their people. So I'm I'm curious, getting back to the skill of relating, how do you think the leaders can use that skill of relating to create a culture that reduces burnout both for themselves and for their team?

Deborah Ancona [00:23:25]:

Yeah. So, I mean, this is a hard one. And so a few things. But as I mentioned before, we're looking at this idea of of family ghosts. So I'm looking at this idea of family ghosts. So these attitudes and behaviors from childhood that bring us into that we bring into our executive role. And for those who are all that inquiry, it's often about being the care bear or pleasing others or that's kind of what they carry with them. In terms of workload, sometimes it's the perfectionism that really gets in the way of having a burnout.

Deborah Ancona [00:24:03]:

And so one of the first things to think about is what is good enough. We don't wanna push people to be perfect at everything. It's just too much. It's too much for us. It's too much for our team. So what is it that is okay. We have to excel on this. And that's a prioritization.

Deborah Ancona [00:24:22]:

Can you prioritize? This, we really have to get get perfect. But all these other things, what is good enough? Because the the difference between good enough and perfect can sometimes be what pushes us over the edge.

Teri Schmidt [00:24:36]:

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Deborah Ancona [00:24:37]:

Another thing is modeling good behavior. I was teaching a group yesterday, and one of the guys said, well, I don't answer any emails after 08:00, and I don't answer any emails over the weekend because I want my people to know that that's not what we're gonna do. And if I just talk about no burnout and dah, dah, dah, but I'm on all weekend and all night, then that sends a very different message than the one I'm trying to communicate. So you are the role model. In terms of relating, you are the role model that people are looking toward to say, how do we function here? And so you have to make sure your behavior is is in line with that. Also goal setting, don't set goals for your people that are impossible to get, because they are again, oh, yeah, I want work life balance, and so on, so forth. But if you don't get this, this, this and this done, then it's you're not a good employee. Well, you're setting up the circumstances that require work that is burnout, high workload.

Deborah Ancona [00:25:39]:

And some of it, as I said, is prioritizing, figuring out and asking people, what is it that we don't have to do? What is it that we can take off our plates?

Teri Schmidt [00:25:52]:

Right?

Deborah Ancona [00:25:53]:

Or get someone else to do or work around or get AI to do. I mean, AI is such a great help these days. I use it all the time now. Oh, summarize this, or I just wrote this, fix it up a little bit, or it's such a good saver of time that figure out what you don't have to do or what what you can get help with. And then finally, I think the thing is to negotiate up. Right? You don't Say, you know what? We're already doing this, this, and this. So I know you want us to do this, but where do you see us dropping something?

Teri Schmidt [00:26:35]:

Right. Right. And your prioritization, you know, where what can come off so that if this needs to be prioritized.

Deborah Ancona [00:26:41]:

Exactly. Exactly. So you push on back up rather than just accepting. And again, people pleasers or perfectionists are gonna wanna please the senior leader, but then you're stuck having all that extra work to do. So how do you set boundaries?

Teri Schmidt [00:27:00]:

Right. Right. Which, again, gets back to your values, gets back to the organizational values as as well to help set those priorities. So, yeah, thank you for that. Well, I I know there's one more skill in the skill of relating and and that is connecting in addition to inquiry and advocacy. So it's not just about those internal team dynamics that we were talking about, but also about those external networks of support that we we started our conversation on. How can leaders intentionally cultivate a network of confidants to help them address challenges like disconnection and burnout? And why is this so essential?

Deborah Ancona [00:27:38]:

Yeah. So I I'd say that the external connections are not just about having someone to discuss with. I think I I think you wanna, in your mind, think about what do you need an external network for. So think about, alright, I want someone at my fingertips when I need career advice, when I have technology questions. So now GenAI, I can't possibly keep up with everything. The guy who taught an AI course, he's I like him and I'm whatever he needs, I'm happy to give him because I want him there when I have a question or a query or or he can he actually is a great connector to a whole community that I don't know. And so okay. Who is gonna answer your technology questions? Who are potential partners for you in the work that you're you're doing? Who do you need as a key adviser, around strategy or other things that that you might need? What customers do you stay in touch with so that you can keep your fingers on the pulse of changing customer demands.

Deborah Ancona [00:28:49]:

So think about what are the questions and what are the needs that you have and then figure out how to create that network. Satya Nadella is my go to role model on this. He every day every day, he has two meetings with this is a man who has a lot to do. So just if we say, okay. We don't have any time for this. Two meetings a day with other CEOs to say, what are you working on? What are you thinking with? Who are you working with? What are the issues you see coming forward? Because when you have that external connectivity, it's easier for you to then invent new ways of working for for you to envision where what is the future and where are we going? If you starting from scratch without that external input, you're behind. And so rather than thinking about it as, oh, my goodness, this is sapping all my time. I don't have time for this.

Deborah Ancona [00:29:48]:

Reframe. This is necessary for me to do my work and make the work easier.

Teri Schmidt [00:29:54]:

Mhmm.

Deborah Ancona [00:29:54]:

And This

Teri Schmidt [00:29:55]:

is an accelerant almost in your work.

Deborah Ancona [00:29:58]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's key to sensemaking. How do you learn about what's changing in this rapidly changing world? Stepping out and asking people and talking to people is one important way to do this. And it's not just for you. It's for your team. In fact, think about how much more relating and sensemaking and connectivity you have if your whole team is going out, and not just you. And so you have to be focused on it, you have to not just go, Oh, everybody should do okay, This week, everybody go and interview a customer about what they like and don't like about this new product.

Deborah Ancona [00:30:37]:

Okay. Everybody go out, come back. So you've done your sensing. Now you're sense making. What did we learn? How does that impact our projects? How does that impact the work we're gonna be doing going forward? Okay. Now we have to present that to senior leaders so that they give us buy in. So, okay, let's get together, get a presentation and go out and give it to several senior leaders so that they're aware of what we're doing. And therefore we get more buy in, we get more resources, we get more of other things.

Deborah Ancona [00:31:08]:

So I think that this external communication is just pivotal to helping with all the other leadership capabilities that you're asked to to have.

Teri Schmidt [00:31:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like you talked about, you know, the connection, the relating is is beneficial not only from all the data that you're taking in and how it can accelerate your business but also beneficial for us as people to to connect to other humans. Absolutely.

Deborah Ancona [00:31:41]:

And to learn. I mean, the the right the essence of of leading these days is learning because we were living in this fast changing world. Everything's changing. We need to learn. And so sending people out to kind of put their fingers on the pulse of all kinds of different trends are, okay, we wanna use AI, but what does that even mean? So if we wanna use it for a particular product, maybe we go out and say, okay, who's using it in this way, so that we can learn from them? And then we come in, okay, what did everybody learn? And how do we harness that learning to our own work? So it's connected to what we're going to do what we have to learn and making new things happen.

Teri Schmidt [00:32:24]:

Yeah. That that's a key point too. And, you know, I'm a a big proponent of being intentional in in all that we do and and what you just said about, you know, it it being focused on, you know, we are all going to go talk to a customer this week and and bring it back and talk about what we learned and how it integrates. And then maybe next week, it's something else, but having that intention behind what you're doing as opposed to, yes, you may just get benefit by talking to people regardless and and kinda rolling the dice, and you might glean some information that ends up being helpful, but it can be so much more helpful when you do have that intention behind it, and it can really accelerate your team and your business.

Deborah Ancona [00:33:07]:

Well, you're absolutely right. In fact, again, we have data on that too, that just because a team increases its communication outside, that does not lead to better performance. It is specific kinds of communications, again, to learn about partnering, about how they do something else, that relates to what you're trying to do, that's what makes the difference. So you're absolutely right to focus in on that intentionality.

Teri Schmidt [00:33:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's great. And it brought another question to mind. It just the since you have, you know, written books, I'm I'm guessing people may take this concept and and maybe apply it in a way that doesn't lead to results like you were just talking about, you know, just taking one piece of it and and increasing communication, but not being intentional about it. Are there is there maybe one or two particular maybe missteps that you've seen being made with the concept either in x teams or in other writings that you would advise people against?

Deborah Ancona [00:34:19]:

Yeah. I I I do think that you've kind of hit on it just because we're saying x teams, which means x stands for externally active going out before in. I think random externalization, just talking to people is is not very helpful. I also think the timing of it, right? So if you have you have to define what's our priority right now. So everybody's gonna go talk to a customer. Everybody's gonna go talk to a competitor or whatever it is. It's focused and it's timely. Okay.

Deborah Ancona [00:34:54]:

We're gonna take the next week to do this, and then we're gonna switch gears and harvest what we learned. It's not just everybody moving all over the place all of the time, because that gets chaotic and you're just bringing in information without that coming together. And the team still exists. The team still has to process things, and you have to build the team. And so it's not just out. It's out and in and learn and process.

Teri Schmidt [00:35:32]:

Excellent. Excellent point. Yeah. That that second step of the harvesting, I could see that being critically important. Well, as I mentioned a few times, you know, I worked primarily with compassionate driven leaders, and I'd love to hear if you had one piece of advice to offer them, what would it be?

Deborah Ancona [00:35:52]:

So I think it would be that if you're compassionate and then you care about others, that's really great. But you have to remember that the others includes you. I think that would be my advice that that sometimes the compassion bleeds over into excess work, excess pleasing, excess inquiry. And you have to remember that if you're burnt out, you're not a good leader. If you're not doing that advocacy, or having someone else again, if you can't have someone else do it, you're losing. And in game theory, if you're the cooperative and you're against a competitive person, then you lose. Right? So just keep the compassion. Oh, my goodness, we are so in need.

Deborah Ancona [00:36:42]:

What we want don't want is more toxic leaders who don't care about anyone else and are just doing whatever they want to do and being mean to people. Compassion is great. But if compassion is gonna be linked to results, then one has to be careful to just give up everything before you you got it. So you know, you're important. Give yourself time off when you need it. Give yourself rest to think about what's next on the agenda. Give yourself some lessons in advocacy so that it's this, again, both and not either or.

Teri Schmidt [00:37:22]:

Yeah. Wonderful. Excellent reminder. Thank you for that. And if people would like to learn more about you and your research and your work, where is the best place for them to go?

Deborah Ancona [00:37:32]:

Yeah. I'm actually gonna this brought on a question. So before I get to, I'm gonna actually pivot and ask you the question.

Teri Schmidt [00:37:38]:

Of course.

Deborah Ancona [00:37:39]:

Yeah. Does what I'm saying resonate with what you've heard? Does there seem to be this kind of imbalance of other over self?

Teri Schmidt [00:37:48]:

There there does. And, you know, we I've talked frequently about strong leaders serve, they don't rescue. And so, you know, when I first had the podcast strong leaders serve and have the business Strong Leaders Serve, and then I started hearing kind of rumblings of we don't want leaders to serve because that leads to burnout. So I really had to do some investigation. What does serve mean to me? Mhmm. And it is, and it's very aligned with how I define leadership and that is courageously using your talents to make a way for others to courageously use theirs. And so that's what I mean about serve. It's it's not about jumping in anytime they're having a problem, but instead finding what capacity within them enables them to solve that problem and what scaffolding they need to be able to be able to solve that problem for themselves.

Teri Schmidt [00:38:44]:

So it can take a little bit more time upfront, but it creates a culture where they aren't necessarily co you know, it's not a codependent culture

Deborah Ancona [00:38:53]:

Mhmm.

Teri Schmidt [00:38:53]:

On you where you're getting burned out. So, yeah, I would I would definitely say that it resonates.

Deborah Ancona [00:38:59]:

Okay. Great. Well, I love that. I love that perspective. I think that's a really important perspective. So I'm glad that you're you're you're pushing that in there. That's great. Anyway, to learn more, I guess, LinkedIn would would you one place? I'm I post pretty frequently, as you say, where I'm posting right now on leadership signature.

Deborah Ancona [00:39:17]:

Another is I'm sure Henrik mentioned it at xlead.co, which is where we have a series of leadership development, tools and products, as well as access to some of the articles and books and blogs and so on that Mhmm. That we put out on a regular basis. I think the other thing is, at just go to MIT Sloan, which is where I I teach, and you can look me up. And again, there, is access to a number of, articles and podcasts and other things.

Teri Schmidt [00:39:53]:

Oh, Oh, excellent. Well, I'll make sure that all gets linked in the show notes, of course, so that people can find that Thank you. Easily. But I I I know you're very busy, and I do really appreciate your time for this conversation. I know that it will be a benefit to many leaders who are listening. So thank you very much.

Deborah Ancona [00:40:11]:

Well, thank you very much. It's really been fun.