Seeking Team Excellence and Leading with Empowerment with Randy Hagan

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This is a podcast episode titled, Seeking Team Excellence and Leading with Empowerment with Randy Hagan. The summary for this episode is: <p>Today's The Future of Teamwork episode introduces Randy Hagan, the Managing Director of Eagle Eye Management Solutions Inc. In their conversation, host and HUDDL3 CEO Dane Groeneveld asks for Randy's thoughts on applying lessons from team sports to business teams, understanding behavior expectations and culture building on projects, and multiple strategies for finding connections that can strengthen teamwork. The two discuss the nature of 'seeking' out talent and company vision and why the future of teamwork may include fewer managers and more coaches.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Key Takeaways:</strong></p><ul><li>[00:11&nbsp;-&nbsp;06:40] Meet Randy Hagan, and how he leads teams through complex projects</li><li>[06:42&nbsp;-&nbsp;13:05] Translating lessons from sports coaching to team building for organizations</li><li>[13:14&nbsp;-&nbsp;17:35] Empowerment, communication, and operating with autonomy</li><li>[17:42&nbsp;-&nbsp;22:02] Setting behavior expectations when working with teams, symptoms and subcultures</li><li>[22:18&nbsp;-&nbsp;24:49] Finding commonalities when working together in teams, understanding where people's perspectives are coming from</li><li>[24:52&nbsp;-&nbsp;28:43] Anna Carrol's COIN method for feedback</li><li>[28:44&nbsp;-&nbsp;30:45] 'Seeking' as a recurring word and guide to higher performance levels</li><li>[30:46&nbsp;-&nbsp;33:33] Setting a vision with the Cogen project</li><li>[33:34&nbsp;-&nbsp;36:52] Creating a purpose, being part of something great and the continual work that requires to maintain</li><li>[36:58&nbsp;-&nbsp;38:16] Select great people, create a vision, and meet regularly</li><li>[39:21&nbsp;-&nbsp;41:43] Facilitating interactions, talking about challenges</li><li>[41:51&nbsp;-&nbsp;47:11] Randy's vision and goals for Eagle Eye and the coaching he is excited for</li><li>[47:21&nbsp;-&nbsp;50:44] Coaching can be more effective than having a manager</li></ul>
Meet Randy Hagan, and how he leads teams through complex projects
06:29 MIN
Translating lessons from sports coaching to team building for organizations
06:23 MIN
Empowerment, communication, and operating with autonomy
04:20 MIN
Setting behavior expectations when working with teams, symptoms and subcultures
04:20 MIN
Finding commonalities when working together in teams, understanding where people's perspectives are coming from
02:30 MIN
Anna Carol, COIN (connecting, observation, implication, next steps)
03:50 MIN
'Seeking' as a recurring word and guide to higher performance levels
02:01 MIN
Setting a vision with the Cogen project
02:47 MIN
Creating a purpose, being part of something great and the continual work that requires to maintain
03:18 MIN
Select great people, create a vision, and meet regularly
01:17 MIN
Facilitating interactions, talking about challenges
02:21 MIN
Randy's vision and goals for Eagle Eye and the coaching he is excited for
05:20 MIN
Coaching can be more effective than having a manager
03:23 MIN

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group, and today joining me from Calgary in Canada, Randy Hagan. So Randy's got a great story coming out of major project developments in the oil and gas industry where I've done a lot of work also. And he's currently the managing director of Eagle Eye Management. We actually connected over LinkedIn. He made a great post over role players in ice hockey, so we started connecting on Teams, and this is going to be a really fun conversation. So thanks for joining the show, Randy.

Randy Hagan: Thanks for having me, Dane, and hopefully over the course of the next little while here, I can share some experiences that will be really helpful to your listeners. So looking forward to the conversation.

Dane Groeneveld: Extremely helpful. When you think about teams, teams probably don't operate in any harder environments than when you're building a facility and a hazardous industry. So you've seen some pretty cool stuff. Maybe you could share with the listeners a little bit more about your background and how you got into leading teams through these complex projects.

Randy Hagan: Sure. So yeah, like you said, I'm living in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, and I've lived all across Canada. Married two adult children. We love the outdoors, and I'm a fledgling bass player as well. And like you mentioned my comment about ice hockey. I guess most people I meet that meet Canadians think that, " Oh, you must be hockey fans." Well, our whole family has been immersed in it for a long time, probably close to 25 years. And part of what I'll probably share is maybe some experiences as well with my time in minor hockey coaching. I didn't even play hockey much growing up, just played on the pond. So a little bit about my professional side, like you said, I worked in the oil and gas industry right out of college, 34 years, retired from full- time work a little over a year ago and now heading up Eagle Eye Consulting. And hopefully we can chat a little bit about that later. The last 20 years was really focused on, I'll call it, being a project professional, and started out 2002, supervising a group for the first time. First time supervising, and really learning to be a manager, but also looking for those opportunities to be a leader and grow those leadership skills. And I would say that around that time was when I came across a video. My wife was working in the bank and she was asked to watch a video called Gung Ho. And for those who haven't seen it's basically using the characterization of three animals to help frame a workplace where this particular supervisor, in a manufacturing plant, seems to be doing way better than everybody else. And he uses these animals as a characterization, like I said, of the spirit of the squirrel, which is worthwhile work. What's the purpose of the work, with the weight of the beaver, which is allow the people within a certain framework to figure out how to get the work done. And then the gift of the goose, which was cheering each other on. And that one I grabbed pretty quickly and tried to utilize it in that group at the time to get people commending each other within the group. And I've used it numerous times. Moving ahead a little bit, back in, I think, it was about 2010, I moved to Calgary and then eventually I got the opportunity to head up a new group, brand new, from scratch, system project group for a major oil sands operation. One of the biggest challenges of my career, and just trying to figure out how to get multiple stakeholders to function together and so on. And maybe we'll touch on a little bit, I'll just briefly describe it right now, is creating a vision for my group and just the way that we would function within our regular interactions and within that vision, within the role statements. And then also we leveraged the services of, what I call, specialized project or organizational effectiveness consultant, really a targeted workshop. Because what I like to say is when a consultant comes to me, and I am a consultant now, is I would say, " Okay, I don't want the whole program. Here's what I'm doing. How can you help me? And can we do something very targeted, very efficient, not just on dollars, but people's time is really valuable. I need to convince people that it's going to be worth their while to sit down together and figure this thing out because done as much as we can ourselves and then now we need some support." And then the other one that was probably the most significant is building a new cogen facility at our refinery in Edmonton. And that was before I became an advisor, a principal engineer within the company. That was my last real opportunity to lead a team, again, vision statements, roles, clarifying what it meant to be part of the team. And then that I felt that what that did was it set us up for success, particularly when we got to the spring of... Because we started the project in late 2017, and by March of 2020 we all know what happened. We weren't quite complete at that time. And we went through the rest of that year until September, finishing construction and starting up flawlessly. We had a few problems, but...

Dane Groeneveld: Every facility does.

Randy Hagan: I felt like the culture that we created got us through some of those challenges. It's like a family. It's like there's still times when there's people that, we have to work through things and some of our conflicts. And we can talk a little more about that later as well.

Dane Groeneveld: No, I look forward to digging into that one. And there's some great points that you raised there in your story, Randy, around... I love the Gung Ho video, so we're definitely going to dig into that. To think that someone had that figured out 20 years ago, and we're only just finding it all over again now post Covid. It's amazing how often the answers have existed for a long time, but they just need to be repackaged by the right person. And then on the cogen facility, that more recent project, what's always fascinated me, and probably a reason that I'm doing so much work here in teamwork with all of these guests, is that I've seen a lot of projects over my career and always loved the fact that you bring together this team of diverse people. It's not always just the owner. It could be the contractors, it could be local service providers, scaffolding, lighting, you name it, community members. But you bring all of these people together in a team environment, and you've got a clear defined start and finish. And yet 10 years later, 20 years later, everyone's talking about what it was like to be on that team if they had a good experience. There's something really cool about those large physical facilities projects.

Randy Hagan: I don't know what the rest of your listeners experience, but I would say within our company there are lots of training for things like contracting, safety management, project planning. We have some leadership courses, but to actually get that ingrained in the way people function, it requires the individual, particularly the project manager, to have that desire. And we were talking about hockey earlier. I would say hockey, for me, especially minor hockey coaching, is probably been a big part of how I learned a lot about dealing with people. And so it was almost like this transition back and forth between. And when you work for a large company, you learn certain, I'll call it management techniques, especially in projects where you want certain analytics to understand what's going well and how you're performing rather than waiting till the end. And then the people side is when you're dealing with a bunch of young people and their parents, you have to learn to understand how to communicate not just for the group, but also each individual learning about each individual. And for a number of the years, 10 or 12 years while I was involved in hockey coaching, I was assistant coach and he would watch people in action, where at the beginning of the year, everybody's got these great plans. And then as the year unfolds, certain things start to surface and you start to ask yourself, " Well, what is this? Is this human nature that certain individuals are becoming, what I'll call, selfish and other teams are just functioning better?" And then the nice thing with sports, not everybody likes sports, but what I like is, it's instantaneous feedback, right? Within a fairly short period of time, you know what the result is. And there's a lot of factors that go into that. Just like this week when Vegas won the Stanley Cup, and it's like when people start talking about, " Well, what was different?" Well, new coach this year, and they used the word accountability. Everybody started talking, " Well, he holds people accountable, the team members hold each other accountable." Well, that's what I found when I looked at coaches that were really good, is they were good at communicating as well as back to the, " What are we trying to do here?" So even after a practice, they would go into the dressing room and say, " We were working on these things. This is where we're going. This is the kind of team we're going to be, and this is why we're working on these things in practice." So when I got to be... The last time I was a head coach, I utilized a lot of those techniques that I saw from the really good coaches, and then also some team building stuff that I'd already learned from work. Because getting everybody together, they all introduced themselves because, just like a project, a lot of times everybody's new, almost everybody doesn't know each other from previous, particularly if you start inside the company with contractors and other stakeholders. So everybody introduced themselves and I asked them, " Okay, we're going to go around the room and just say a couple of things about yourself that are non hockey related." Because we know who you are as hockey player, you're going to play hockey, you're left wing, whatever. And then we got input for, " What should our goals be for the year?" And interesting story, we got into a tough patch a couple months later and we were on a losing streak, and I said, " Do you guys remember what our goals were?" And they could list them all off, every single one of them. And just tying that back to they contributed and some of them were like, "Wow, I don't know how we're going to do this," like making the state finals for that level is inaudible in Canada. And just the way that all came together, and then also teaching the captains, because there's a captain, two assistant captains, teaching them to be leaders. And then lo and behold, they came to us, the coaches, before one of the most important games of the year and said, " I know you guys always come in and you talk to us beforehand. Can you come in early? Because we want to talk to the team before we come out." One of the best games I've ever been inaudible And it's like, " Oh, right." So again, it's an environment, and everybody has their different unique things that they're interested in outside of work, but to be able to tie that together, like I said, I was using analytics because I didn't play the game. I was collecting information that when the game became crucial, it's like, " Okay, that person always makes up most of their shots from this location. When you're on the ice, you two people, you're going to take away their opportunity." They're like, " How do you know that?" And I'm like, " Well, we've been collecting this information all season." I'm like, " Oh, it's, we can be better than them, or we just play better than them."

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. I think that's huge. And I think it's funny as you're sharing that story, Randy, it made me think back to, you made mention that not everyone loves sports, but sports and projects have something in common, which is there is a clock, there is a schedule to the game or to when the project finishes. And there are a lot of metrics along the way. When people are running like regular sustaining operations, maintaining a unit for example, or running an administration function, there aren't always the clarity of clock and metrics. But I think what's changing in the world of work, and what's exciting for teams, is that we're moving from people working in processes to people working in more projects. I think with generative AI, with technology in general, with some of the collaboration that we're starting to see in the workplace, everyone's moving towards projects. So that's why this conversation's so relevant for a lot of our listeners. And when you think about a project or a sports team playing a sports game, that kind of hygiene that you set at the beginning of the season or at the beginning of the project's critical. It's huge because going back to your three animals, I love the beaver framework, which is giving, once you set those goals, like you mentioned of the captains, you give the team the autonomy to determine how they're going to do the work because you've set the goals and behaviors. That seems powerful for anyone out there running a small team or a small project.

Randy Hagan: And that kind of, I think of the word empowerment, which I've seen that overused many, many times. And there was one particular time on the coaching project where I decided to do a topic on empowerment. And for myself it was trying to continue to build on what we were already, the team I was leading, the type of team culture I wanted to have, including things like the effective team players. The vision is having a conversation about empowerment. And a lot of times I've found, and maybe it's just my generation, is people want to be empowered. They feel like I'm going to hand them something, " Okay, I'm going to give you control." Well, it actually works at least 50 50, which is when you are empowered and you're great at being empowered, you know how to have a conversation with the person that is empowering you and saying, " Okay, I've got this situation. I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm going to get back to you in the next couple of days once I've kind of captured all the information and I can present to you what I think are a few options, I'm working with these people on it." So they kind of keep you up to date. They don't wait until, " Oh, things are really in the ditch and now I need you to stand in now and help me figure this out." I was like, " Well, how long have you known about this?" Well, part of being empowered is understanding that balance of I can work with the other team members on a cogen project. If you are an engineering manager and you're working closely with this construction manager and you're building something, I don't need to know everything that's going on. You guys are closer to the information, you know way more about what's going on than me. And so take care of that. But if we're in a team meeting and you go, " Oh, by the way, we've just noticed this particular issue, myself and so- and- so are on it, we're going to cycle back with the engineering team, and if there's anything you need to be aware of, Randy, we'll let you know if this is going to have a big impact on the metric, the schedule's going to get blown out a month," whatever. So that to me, that's part of empowerment is talking that through. And then it helps to define that balance between is the person junior and highly motivated, or is the person very experienced and maybe the motivation or the way they've had to behave in the past is not quite the same. So having that discussion ends up one of the many things that can create the team environment that when you really hit big challenges, you can function as opposed to everything goes through the project manager, like it's-

Dane Groeneveld: Bottleneck.

Randy Hagan: Everything done. You can't get things done. So...

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. No, that's a good point. It ties back to that other key word you mentioned earlier, Randy, what I heard you say there is that when you give people empowerment, empowerment comes with accountability. If somebody is falling behind schedule, if we're starting to see some safety metrics slipping, if you're going to have that empowerment, you've got to be accountable to bringing that up and sharing it with the team and acting, which is really big. When you think about... I liked your example there of engineering manager and construction manager. I may be way off par here, but from my experience, putting some people on these projects in the past, the engineering team and construction team didn't always get along, and there were always egos and hard heads on both sides. And I'm sure that's true for other functions, but I just saw it more between engineering and construction. What is it about those behaviors that you set early in a team environment that helps the team know how to behave when invariably there's always going to be egos at play, and there's going to be different opinions and different levels of information. So how does that behavior start to bridge through and help that team work through those natural conflicts and challenges?

Randy Hagan: So in my experience, there are symptoms and then there's subcultures. I know as a junior engineer... There's actually a podcast that I follow on LinkedIn as well. I think they're called Construction Brothers or something like that. And I made a comment on one of their posts about... I remember when I was a young engineer, when you walk out there, it's almost like they want to make you feel uncomfortable. So it's that culture of-

Dane Groeneveld: Needling.

Randy Hagan: Yeah, you're in our place now, and then the flip side that I've seen is great construction professionals get into an engineering office and they get placed in a cubicle. They're told that they're going to provide constructability input, and no one comes to see them, and they don't go to see anybody, the great ones, what they would do, in terms of personal interactions, is they go around, they meet with the people that and get to know them as an individual, and then say, " Okay, how about I sit down with you on a certain frequency, see what you're working on, maybe I can grab it and I can look at it and I can give you some input." Otherwise, what happens, and where the real conflict starts, I think, early on in the project is, the engineering folks have already got to the point where they've basically almost completed their work. A construction person looks at it and goes, " I can't build that," right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Randy Hagan: Then they try to force it and go, " No, you have to change it." And the engineering person says, " Listen," and they might talk in a certain way, but what I hear is, " I finished my work, I don't want to go back and redo it now I've got other things I got to do." That's redoing things. And so I think it ties a bit to some of the aspects of effective team members. That communication aspect of seeking other team members out. Now the team leader, the overall project manager, and in my case, on a cogen project, there's a project manager for the engineering procurement construction organization, which is a inaudible organization and then myself. And so us getting together and saying, what are the things that we're going to do to help ensure we're facilitating this and we're encouraging it, and then if we have to, we say, " No, that's not the way we work here. We're going to work differently than you might have in the past." And then listen to how people respond and go, " There's got to be a reason for this, why this person is behaving this way because it's been rewarded in the past, they've been burned in the past. And how do we get that out in the open?" Maybe not in a big team building environment, but maybe as a subset of folks sitting down and going through and saying, " We want this to be different. We want to function differently. We want to win. We want you guys to be successful. How do we help you be successful?" And that's what I've seen. I love construction. I'm not as experienced in engineering, but I like the technical part. But that's what I see is these two cultures that... And hopefully I've described it sufficiently, I'm not sure, maybe you can-

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. No, I think you have, and I've seen, just the way you described that, I've seen the same between a sales team and a success team, or a sales team and a development team in a software business. I like the way you called it symptoms and subcultures. And that's seeking others out, seeking other team members out is what I wrote that you said. That, particularly in a digital world that we're moving more and more into, I know when you're constructing a facility, everyone's going to have a lot more time face to face. But in a digital world for people that are managing virtual projects, it takes a lot of intentionality to seek others out. Kind of like your construction guy in a cubicle in the engineering office. They have to physically get up, set meetings, walk the floor, and I think teams need to be thinking about that.

Randy Hagan: And get to know people. That's the thing is, where do you find those common things? Maybe the construction. It seems silly. My son's a project manager and I was telling him this thing. I was like, he was in a situation where a senior person, he wasn't sure how this person, what they thought of him. And I said, " What kind of interest do they have?" He says, " Well, I know he likes baseball. I hear him talk about baseball all the time." I'm like, Well, you like watching baseball, so just say, Hey, did you see the game last time? Hey, what'd you think of that pitch?" Whatever. All of a sudden the person starts coming towards him, coming into his office and saying same thing. So you find those things that are common, then you get to know each other as people, and you go, " Okay, so that Randy guy's, not too bad. That Dane guy's not too bad. I was actually talking to him. And he is fairly approachable and he actually likes baseball." So it becomes something in common. Then you get to know them as people. I think you're more likely to make the next step, which is can I figure out a way to understand where you're coming from, even if I don't agree with you on a particular solution, whether it's a technical solution or you have an opinion on how something should get done. And I'm willing to listen, that's the other part. Listen to what you're saying. I'll ask understanding questions. Maybe I'll say, " Let me take that away and see if we can, maybe we'll get back together and we'll talk about it again, because I need to think about what you're saying because I haven't seen it like that before. That's something I don't know if I can live with," or there's so many aspects to each of these things, of being more effective team and then being an effective leader. It's a lot of the same elements to it.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. There's a lot. And actually that reminds me, one of my good friends, an OD consultant, Anna Carol, she does a lot of work on effective feedback and everyday feedback. And she gave me this acronym, COIN, and it was connect. So your baseball example's a great one. If you're connecting with people, it's easier to start a feedback discussion or a conflict resolution. You connect, then you state your observation, " Hey, Randy, I've observed this from the plan or from your behavior or what your team did out here." And then explain the implication of that to them so that they're not immediately going to what they think that means. And the implication of my observation that your team is turning up late to the toolbox talks. That team's not part of our overall safety culture or whatever else it is. And so next steps. " I'm thinking it would be a good idea to do this. What do you think?" Now you've connected and you've given the other person an opportunity to listen to your full story. You haven't gone in there and hit them with a, " Why aren't your guys in the toolbox meetings?" And started the conflict. And they've now got the opportunity having listened, to explain to you, discuss, ask more questions. So I think it can have a lot more impact.

Randy Hagan: Yeah, I think I mentioned the effective team members. It's a seven category document that I've put together to try to supplement things like clear role statements, vision, a lot of those other things. And the one thing that got updated two or three times in the iterations as I was creating that, was the one on conflict management, and looking at it myself here. One of the things is being proactive. When I think about evaluating candidates that I've come across for roles, especially leadership roles, and I ask them for a specific example on where they've been in a situation where there's conflict, and the typical is going to be where conflict has already happened and now they're working through it. The good to great ones are the ones who they sense there's the potential for conflict. They seek out the issue or the person, even though it might be uncomfortable, sit down, listen, like we were saying, and then go, " Okay, I have a different perspective. I need to think about this because I can't get there yet." And so wanting to at least be open enough to change your own biases in a sense. And it might seem simple enough when you're talking about putting pipe together on a facilities project or whatever, but it typically starts with, " Well, I know what I know I've got 30 years of experience. What do you know?" People are, especially when you put a whole bunch of guys together, guys are egotists. And so each guy's going to be like, " Well, I know more than you do because I got this much experience." I go, " Okay, wait a second. We have a mission here that we're trying to accomplish. So do we have the right people on the task, and okay, are we really coming up with the right solution or is it just your solution? And have you really seen everything?" How could some person see everything?

Dane Groeneveld: And why is what happened there relevant to what we're trying to do here? That's always a question. I think one of the big problems when people start to defend their position is they're saying, this is why we have to do it my way, rather than saying, why could we not do it this other way? And I loved it. I've actually got your document here under effectively manages conflict. You continue to use this word seeking, which I think is a really powerful word in the context that you're using it. And I haven't heard it as much in conversations lately, but seeking out others, and in this one, seeking common ground. But seeking is an active, intentional effort. And I think going back to the top of this document, commitment to being an effective team member or team player, everyone has a role in being an effective team member. So I like that seeking kind of dynamic.

Randy Hagan: Well, and you can be, like hockey teams you see, or sports teams is media tries to figure out what's wrong with the team when they're not functioning properly. So they got all the right talent, and for some reason inaudible And then the season's over, then the stories come out, " Well, so- and- so didn't like playing with so-and-so or can't play for that coach anymore," or whatever. So then the conflict comes out and you go, "Oh, okay, well there we go." They had all the right talent, they had all the right people in the right positions, and the interaction that you need to function at higher and higher performance levels isn't there because people have gotten into a position where they don't like the style of play or they don't like the way they've been utilized. And sometimes it's not as obvious where team members, I've seen it more on the minor sports like minor hockey, where, as it goes on, it's like, " Well, maybe grandmother wants them to be scoring more goals and they won't pass the puck." And then people are arguing. Again, it comes back to what's the human tendency? Self. Looking at inaudible Looking at our own assumptions. And how do you flip that switch yourself and go out looking for, " Okay, do I have the right perspective here? Help me understand."

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. And talking about perspective, I know before the show we were talking about corporations have visions, corporate visions, but you've had some success both at the team level in hockey, but also in the projects around setting a vision for the project, which allows everyone to seek that common ground, like you stated here, and to have a shared fate. So maybe could you share a little bit more with the listeners how you went about on that inaudible in a cogen project, how you went about setting a vision that everyone could rally around in that setting?

Randy Hagan: Sure. So I guess the first thing I would say is in my experience, oil and gas, being an engineer in a company that became more and more work process driven, I found it really hard to create a vision. And the first time, actually, before the cogen, it was back in 2012, 13, I was setting up the sustaining project group and one of my leaders came to me and said, " Randy, you really need," and she did this a couple times, you really need to paint a picture of where we're going here. People are trying to understand where we're going. What are we trying to accomplish? What does our group look like a year from now? What are we doing?" And so on. And I'm like, " I don't... Right. So then, I'll keep it brief, but I was on a plane, frankly, I was reading this article about transformational leadership and everything came together. Everything came pouring into my head, and I just started writing a bunch of thoughts down. And then eventually I framed it into a statement, and then I had a bunch of enabling aspects to it. So then when I got... In 2017, 18, I was thinking the same thing is, I want to make sure that our team has a sense of where we're going, whether it's mission or vision. And sometimes people use those interchangeably. Frankly, I've done it myself. It's like, " Oh, wait a second, building a facility. It's a gas park inaudible We're going to bring natural gas in. We're going to produce steam and electricity. How do I write a vision for something like that?" And then eventually, again, light bulb goes on, it's like, " Well, this is a really important capital project for the site and for the corporation." A lot of money, a quarter of a billion dollars, and this is going to make a big difference because we haven't done a project like this at this site or in the company in a long time. And so this could be a stepping stone, if we do this well, it could be a stepping stone, not just for the site in terms of taking them to the next level as far as their energy efficiency, but also attracting more capital. So that became the statement was something related to that. And then the rest was like, " We care about each other enough that we want people to go home safely." And I could use the word, nobody gets hurt, which is the ExxonMobil terminology, but how do you say that in a way where you expect people when they read it to go, " Okay, so that's what that means." We care and-

Dane Groeneveld: There's a why. There's a why in the statement, how you say inaudible.

Randy Hagan: There's a purpose behind. And then when it came to how we communicate, how we interact, people love being part of the team, things like that. They were all, each statement was meant to be capturing that innate human feeling of wanting to be part of something great. And so when you look at a vision statement, for me anyway, when it's written that way, then most people, not everybody, there's some cold callous people, they go, " I don't need one of those. Just tell me what my job is inaudible"

Dane Groeneveld: Let me get on with it.

Randy Hagan: That's fine. They're great. The people like that are great where they stand, but it becomes something that you have to continually... You can't just one and done it. And I've seen that too, where it's team building... And I guess broader on team building, I've seen situations, even on the cogen project where someone said, " Well, that's not really team building. We're getting together to talk about quarterly priorities." Well, part of it is, each lead has to come with what's important? What do they need to accomplish that? And is it really the top two or three things for this quarter? Or sitting down and going through role statements and saying, " Okay, so what do I need from you? What are you going to deliver to me?" And they go, " That's not team building." Well, it is part of the framework of ensuring the team is talking to each other and not just going through follow up lists and going, " Okay, yeah, this is what we did this week. Move that two weeks from now." It's like, " Okay, that's not team building. That's just the way you function. Sit down." And then the other thing I've seen in teams, team building, as you bring a consultant in, they do a nice long presentation. People do some breakout sessions, then they go for some drinks afterwards and a social gathering, and then it's over, right? Everyone goes back to their cubicle or their office and somehow things get done. It's like, " Well, yeah, it'll get done. But how about..." I've seen project managers and leaders have coffee chats on Friday morning, they just want to sit down, or maybe Monday mornings, say, " How was your weekend? What were you guys doing? What were you ladies? Okay, that's great. That sounds like a lot of fun." The other one I really like is integrating it into a monthly staff meeting, which is things like... One I've used is called Thumbs Up, which is, it's got a big thumb on it. And seeing experienced people recognize a junior person for something that they went above and beyond to accomplish, or they taught them something about a computer technology that they wouldn't have... Almost like reverse mentoring. Junior people usually come up with them really quickly, because they get so much coaching and advising and mentoring. And when it first starts, you have to have a few of your own. And then it became like football teams. People started putting them outside their office and stacking them up. They've got inaudible

Dane Groeneveld: How cool.

Randy Hagan: And so-

Dane Groeneveld: They'd have a big thumbs up.

Randy Hagan: Yeah. Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: That's great.

Randy Hagan: Back to what I was saying. You're creating, as a leader, you want to create the environment of interaction and how people should function. And it goes without saying, if you can, you select people, because it's very hard to change people. And so you select the great people, best people in terms of competency and how they believe in functioning and interacting with others on a team. Then creating things like vision and those things, like the effective team players to say, " This is the type of culture that we believe in. What do you guys think?" Get some input, update it, make sure people keep it in their workplace. And then the regular monthly check- ins of like, " Okay, let's get everybody to take an opportunity to talk about a team building topic every month." And you pick it. If you're assigned, you pick what you want it to be. If you're on a cycling team, talk about that. You read a particularly good book recently and you like to talk about what you got out of the book. And then it just, it keeps it perpetuating and growing, and everybody wants to be a part of it. And that's what inaudible What you really notice is when people outside of the group want in the group.

Dane Groeneveld: I totally agree with you. And you can also see it when it's not working. No one wants to stay with the project. And as we both know, it's pretty painful when you start losing top talent towards the end of a project. And that's tricky, I think in any environment, whether it's a facility or a software project or anything, or a key event. That's pretty tricky. But I like the way you use vision there in the project as far as that concept of painting a picture. Because you're right, you don't have to go and replace the corporate vision. It can coexist, but painting a picture for what does this project mean for the facility, the community, the team that's in it. It creates clarity. And I also really appreciate, Randy, the way you explained the importance of role statements and leaders giving their updates. You tied that back into, I think the Gung Ho video again. In terms of not only the autonomy to do your own work, but also the ability for each other to celebrate. And I think that's very real, because one thing I'm seeing, no matter who we speak to as a guest, no matter what their background is, whether they're a storytelling consultant, a founder, a former project manager, a business executive, clarity is one thing that is critical to teams and teams performance, and it's part of team building. You don't have to be out on the go- karts or paint balling, just sharing clarity with each other around how to seek each other out, how to help each other achieve success and celebrate that success is, it seems to keep showing up as one of those top three.

Randy Hagan: Right. I would agree. And then the other one that I would say, back to the role statements, especially for my direct reports, I made sure I was very intentional in how those were written. And with the individual like with the construction manager, engineering managers is getting very intentional, because they could be very... The easiest thing to do is just take the generic one from the company and go, " You're a construction manager, you've got all this stuff. Here's all your tasks," right? So when you frame that, it's still pretty high level relative to something like, " Well, how do we function in a weekly update meeting?" Well, in there there's a bit of what I call a process. What's the purpose of the meeting? What's the expected results? And what's everybody supposed to do to prepare? And you sort of touched on, and that's why I want to bring this one up too, is we didn't expect people to give updates on every single thing. If there's something that you're responsible for, if you have to, you declare, " Okay, I'm working this item, and I'm going to need some help from you and you on this one." and they might have already been doing it, and so we had two purposes. You're not just there to give me an update because I might go, " That's nice, but you really should make sure that so- and- so is aware." And they go, " Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. So that's got to be ready in the next couple weeks? Yeah. We better get together and work through that." So it's really about facilitating the interactions of what's really important and what do we got to get done or what are your issues or challenges? And then maybe someone can say, " Hey, I can help you with that."

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Randy Hagan: Right. And that's inaudible right? 45 minutes. We had meetings where we said we're done in 20 minutes.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Because able to move through what's important and give everyone their time back. I like that a lot. We've covered a lot of really cool ground. I'm going to get Alicia to share the Gung Ho videos, so we'll connect with you on that, because so I'm sure a lot of our listeners will like to get into that a little bit more. But I've got a final question for you on the future of teams and teamwork. And it ties into what you are doing now with Eagle Eye. I read an article the other day that said there are some companies out there now that are removing managers from the org charts and replacing them with coaches because they see the value that a coach can bring in some of these things that we've talked about today in helping teams set vision, set clarity around role statements, who to select on the team, how to set behaviors. And I think it's going to be part of the future because I think you're going to see more and more teams forming for short projects where you don't need a manager, but you do need a coach. So perhaps you could share a little bit more about your vision for Eagle Eye and the type of coaching you're excited about getting out there and doing with business owners and project leaders.

Randy Hagan: So the thing I always believed in, even when I was leading an effort, is I would like to have the support of an experienced person on a frequent basis as opposed to, " We're done, I've written the project plan. Can you review the project plan and then give me a hundred comments? And so I was leading a project one time, where it was a two and a half billion dollar project, and I said, " Hey, can you come to the plot plan review with me? Because you've run a project maybe not this size before, but maybe you as an advisor can come." So to get back to answering your question, that's what I can utilize my experiences as a project management professional, as a leader, and working with either teams or with the management team. So as an example, the last year or so, two relatively junior project managers combined their running projects worth over 250 million dollars Canadian. And I would meet with them, typically weekly for an hour or so, and just touching base on a few key items. And they would come prepared with, what's your key issues? Okay, did that one get resolved? Okay, you address this. What's coming up over the next two or three weeks? Oh, have you thought of this? Can you make sure? Okay, where's the safety program from the contractor? And what's in there? Have they got something for dropping objects from heights or whatever? Okay. Things that more looking forward than anything, particularly for project manager, because if you're a junior, you haven't seen it before. When an experienced person is working with someone who's got the responsibility, feels empowered, but they have the ability to talk to somebody other than their manager because it's not going to become a performance issue. And they can open up and share what they're concerned about. And then even aspects like if a project manager's dealing with a commercial negotiation, I would even ask them questions like, " Okay, what was the nonverbal communication back and forth? And how did you assert yourself? You're the project manager for the client, and even though you might be a junior person, you need to act like you're in charge." Things like that. They're just simple things. The way to work as opposed to what you should be thinking about, and doing that frequently as opposed to, " Now we've got a problem, we need someone to come in and do an assessment, figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. And we're six months behind." That's not meaningful for anyone. I know in our organization, each project that's approved has a reason. It could be a regulatory requirement, it could be base business, it could be we're going after certain opportunities. This is worth so much a month. We want to stay on track, and we don't want to be late. And then the other vision I have, I haven't done this yet, but I've done a bit of it with more individuals is I think I can add a lot of value when their project teams are doing their stewardships. Most organizations are going to do some sort of regular stewardship monthly. They come in, I'm sitting with the management team, I'm asking questions. Because they might be business line people, they could be commercial people, they could be operation people. And they go, " I've never run a project before. We've never had one this size in our organization. We've hired this person. We think they're pretty good at what they do. Can you spend some time with them? And then also sit in with us as the presentation, the monthly updates being done. And then not only asking the questions, but giving us a debrief after." And I go, " Okay, so how do you think things are going? Where do you think the soft spots are here, the risks? And why? And what should we do about it?" And then they take the responsibility to, because it's line management, to ensure that they're taking the action they need to keep it on track. But it's usually quality, cost and time. There's safety as well. There's no sense of having a great project that was done on time, on cost, and it's not functioning the way the operation inaudible

Dane Groeneveld: It's going to break.

Randy Hagan: inaudible Right. Yeah. Doesn't meet the spec or whatever. I'm not sure if that paints a picture.

Dane Groeneveld: It does. It paints a great picture. And I think it does tie into that article, which I'll also have Alicia share with this podcast, Randy, which is that coaching on a frequent basis can actually be more powerful than having a manager sitting over hovering over because it creates that growth. I love that you started with the two more junior project managers. It creates growth. And again, going back to the Gung Ho, the three spirit animals, and the beaver, if you are creating a safe framework by bringing a coach that has the experience that's looking forward, not reacting, then you're creating room for those individuals to learn a little bit by putting their hands on the hot stove and going, " Ouch." But also from getting ahead from starting to ask those questions, role play, maybe a conversation with a contractor or a question they need to ask. I think that's super powerful. And I've been through a few projects, not building facilities, but a few projects where I feel like if I'd had a coach that I could have checked in with once or twice a week, they may have given me the confidence, the courage, or just the state of mind space to seek out the right question to ask and what to listen for, which is often a big gap of mine when I'm running projects, and not putting enough time and focus into any one thing enough.

Randy Hagan: Well, I think it comes with experience and inaudible the role players. And it also reminds me of a really great minor hockey coach that I worked with. He actually played pro for a little bit, and he used to say, " This is a simple game." And then he would describe stuff. I'm like, " Yeah, I guess it is simple." Then for me, if I'm dealing with facilities project, for me, it's like I see things that they can't see because they have 10 years of experience, I have 35, and so I have the right attitude of helping them to understand the why. And then they do the work. They learn at an accelerated pace. It's amazing how quickly they learn. And they're given an opportunity in a way, because they have a huge challenge, but they just need someone where they feel safe, where they can be vulnerable and talk about what they feel is happening. And then they go, "Okay." And then their confidence level increases, and then they go and get the job done. Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's absolutely it. Well, I can already see a title for Alicia who's normally brilliant at pulling these up for this episode. So it's going to be all about seeking out learning, seeking out growth, seeking out common ground, seeking out others. I really like what you bring from the ice rink and from the major project environments to teams, particularly teams taking on complex projects. So thanks again, Randy, for joining us. And if any of our listeners are tackling a project and wouldn't mind reaching out to you and maybe getting some coaching, some consulting hours, how do they best find you?

Randy Hagan: Reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can find me under Eagle Eye Management Solutions, Randy Hagan. I think that should work fairly well and-

Dane Groeneveld: Perfect.

Randy Hagan: ...I think. And then my contact information is on there. My email, my cell number I believe is on there as well. So-

Dane Groeneveld: Great.

Randy Hagan: ...I look forward to hearing from people, even if it's just to have a conversation, start out and possibly it's a conversation, then we go from there.

Dane Groeneveld: I love it. Well, hopefully we'll find some other ways to collaborate in the future too. So thanks again for taking the time, Randy. It's been a wonderful conversation.

Randy Hagan: Thanks for having me, Dane. Appreciate it. Take care.

DESCRIPTION

Today's The Future of Teamwork episode introduces Randy Hagan, the Managing Director of Eagle Eye Management Solutions Inc. In their conversation, host and HUDDL3 CEO Dane Groeneveld asks for Randy's thoughts on applying lessons from team sports to business teams, understanding behavior expectations and culture building on projects, and multiple strategies for finding connections that can strengthen teamwork. The two discuss the nature of 'seeking' out talent and company vision and why the future of teamwork may include fewer managers and more coaches.

Today's Host

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Dane Groeneveld

|HUDDL3 Group CEO

Today's Guests

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Randy Hagan

|Managing Director at Eagle Eye Management Solutions Inc